


Retrieve Arms From Robots

by Aquelon



Category: Homestuck, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Inevitable Spoilers, It's The Adventure Zone characters play SBURB, Things Go Wrong T M, and more to come - Freeform, so if you think i shouldn't tag all of them just tell me, that sure is a lot of characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-29 09:25:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12627936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquelon/pseuds/Aquelon
Summary: A ruff boi, a flip wizard, a crunchy nature boy, two sweet flips gals, and an umbrella babe play "the last game you'll ever need to play".  Things go wrong.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> Magnus retrieves arms from closet. Taako gets his HOME IMPROVEMENT on. Merle finds a shed basement.

    A young ruff boi stands in his bedroom.  As it just so happens, today is the release date of a game boldly marketed as ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’.  This young ruff boi has evidently interpreted that as ‘it will be very fun’ and not ‘it will kill you’.  This ruff boi is approximately fourteen, although his impressive sideburns may suggest otherwise, and yet it’s only today that this ruff boi will be named.  What will the name of this ruff boi be?

>Enter name.

MAGNUS BURNSIDES

That’s a really silly name that’s probably going to be-- no wait, the name got accepted?  The name got accepted.  Huh.

Your name is MAGNUS BURNSIDES.  As previously mentioned, today you will be playing “THE LAST GAME YOU’LL EVER NEED TO PLAY”.  You have a variety of interests.  You enjoy CARPENTRY and are very good at it.  You are also pretty good at HITTING THINGS WITH AN AXE, a skill that has mostly been tested on logs.  You really like DOGS and want MORE of them than the ZERO you currently have, but you also like your FISH, STEVEN.  You also think BEARS, DUCKS, and JELLYFISH are really cool.  You are RUSTICALLY HOSPITABLE.  Your goal is to PROTECT people.  You’re starting to feel, for some reason, that TIME is running out.

What will you do?

>Magnus: Retrieve arms from chest.

You used to keep your ARMS in the chest, but it got too full.  Now they’re mostly stashed in the closet.

>Magnus: Retrieve arms from closet.

You open the closet and a whole bunch of robot arms fall onto your head, making a somewhat comical pile.  You extract yourself from the pile of arms and put most of them back in the closet, keeping two of them.  You put the arms in your modus, except for that I haven’t thought about what everyone’s moduses should be.

>Magnus: Get axe and carpentry tools.

You captchalogue your CARPENTRY TOOLS and your CRAPPY AXE and put them into your sylladex.

One of your friends is pestering you.

>Magnus: Answer chum.

    (The chumhandles that I’m using here are from a post on Tumblr.  I couldn’t find it to ask if they were okay to use, so if someone can direct me to it that would be great.)

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:25 AM.

CT: so you got that game yet m’dude?

CC: not yet.

CT: is that postman thug going to take all day?

CC: to be fair, it is ten thirty AM.

CT: s’much later than that where i am

CT: i was going to pester UU bout it

CT: but she was talking with her penpal and was real busy

CC: who’s her penpal anyway?

CT: your guess is as good as mine my guy

CT: i’ve never met him

CC: alright.  i’m going to go check if the mail’s here yet.

CT: great,  see ya dude

CC: see ya!

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

    >Magnus: Go check if the mail’s here yet.

You look out the window.  The flappy whatsit on the mailbox is up.  You’re not entirely sure what that means, but it might mean that there’s mail.

>Magnus: Get mail.

The mailbox is all the way downstairs, and you exit your room into the hallway.  You’ve decorated the hallway with several WOODEN DUCKS, while your DAD has contributed an ENGINEERING SCHEMATIC.  Your DAD is in his STUDY.  You step carefully over the ducks.

>Magnus: Go downstairs.

The walls are covered in more ENGINEERING SCHEMATICS and a few pictures of people you don’t recognize.  There’s a few more WOODEN DUCKS that both of you have been neglecting to take off the staircase.  You go into the living room, where there’s more of both of those things as well as several pieces of WOODEN FURNITURE that you carved.  There’s a gigantic WOODEN BEAR, as well as something your DAD is working on designing that you think might be an ACTUAL CANNON.  You look out the window, and it doesn’t show you any information that you didn’t already know.

>Magnus: Inspect cannon.

It’s a really cool cannon.  It isn’t loaded, and it doesn’t look like it has any way to fire the cannon, but other than that it looks like it might be pretty much done.  Several of the ENGINEERING SCHEMATICS might be for cannons like this one.

You don’t know much about cannons.

>Magnus: Go outside.

You do that.

> ===>

There isn’t really much around you, aside from a few buildings leading up to the suburbs.  You’re in a less populated slice of the region, but it’s not quite rural.  There are also a lot of cliffs in the general area, and a few CONTRAPTIONS that are based on the ENGINEERING SCHEMATICS inside, and a few WOODEN CARVINGS that you’ve made.

You say some really deep stuff about the cliffs and the wind and the timespace continuum and bears and dogs and you just… love dogs so much.  They’re soft and loving and they love you.

>Magnus: Get mail.

You pop open the mailbox.  You’ve been doing this on and off all morning, and once again there isn’t any mail in the mailbox.  You flip the little swingy lever bit down so that it’s not up.

>Magnus: Snoop around your DAD’s study.

You peek into the window.  It looks like your DAD is sketching out some schematics for what looks like a punch card machine of some sort.  He seems to be copying them down from something, and he’s also got a bottle open on the table.

He usually doesn’t do that.  It’s like 10:30 in the morning, and while he does enjoy beverages like that, he usually just has like a glass at dinner.  Huh.

>Magnus: Go back inside.

You do that, and make your way back up to your room.  While you were downstairs, it seems several people started pestering you.

>Magnus: Answer chums.

truthAura [TA] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:28 AM.

TA: I just wanted to let you know that I have the game, so when you guys are done messing around I can help with it.

TA: Are you there?

TA: Dangit, gramps is calling.  See you soon!

truthAura [TA] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering truthAura [TA] at 10:35 AM.

CC: wait, i’m here now!

CC: dammit.

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

    >Magnus: Answer more chums.

camouflagedAzure [CA] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:30 AM.

CA: hey! you there?

CC: yeah! i was just going to go check on the mail again.

CA: the game?

CC: yeah, it wasn’t there yet.

CA: bummer. wanna see my progress on the duck?

CC: sure, how’s that going?

CA: fantasypixly.url/image/puzzleduck87

CA: yeah, i’m pretty sure it has two butts.

CC: oh.

CC: don’t worry about it! it looks good!

CC: it looks… salvageable?

CA: it looks like it has two butts.

CC: yeah, but the feathers are really good.

CA: alright.  i’m going to get back to work on the duck.  have fun!

CC: you too!

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    >Magnus: Answer remaining chum.

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:32 AM.

CG: Do you wanna go on Fantasy League of Legends sometime today so I can kick your butt?

CC: hey, i’d be the one to kick your butt!

CG: Last time suggests otherwise!

CC: that was 90% CA and we both know it.  but anyways, not today.  that game is supposed to come out today and i’m just waiting for it.

CG: Okay.  See ya later today then.

CG: PS.  Keep telling yourself that.

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    While you were answering all these people, CT started pestering you again.

    >Magnus: Answer CT.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:40 AM.

CT: did the mail arrive yet?

CC: nope.

CT: when does it normally arrive?

CC: i don’t know.  various times.  is UU done talking to her penpal yet?

CT: yeah, she took a break to tell me a bunch of stuff about the game

CT: and that her penpal’s a huge nerd, but what else is new

CC: what sort of stuff did she say about the game?

CT: it lets you go somewhere? and she thinks that’s great

CT: her penpal’s apparently gonna be playing a different version of the same game

CT: he’s not entirely sure how the game works, but he’s doing nerd stuff to it

CC: is he going to be UU’s server player?

CT: nah, dude,  he’s got a different version of the game because he lives in penpal nerd land, nowhereville, or somethin’ idk

CT: and the two aren’t compatible or somethin’?

CC: maybe i’ll talk to UU about her penpal.

CC: i’m sort of curious about him now.

CT: great, m’dude, tell me if you find any juicy secrets

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

    >Magnus: Pester UU about mysterious pen-pal.

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 10:44 AM.

CC: hey so what’s up with your penpal?

UU: huh?

CC: i mean like, CT was telling me that your penpal is doing nerd stuff to the game to try and figure out how it works, and i was sort of wondering about your penpal.

CC: what’s he like, whereabouts does he live, how did you wind up in touch with him, that sort of stuff.

UU: he’s a giant nerd, just a huge dork, just the biggest nerd you can imagine.

UU: i don’t know where he lives, but it’s not close to here, if that’s what you’re wondering.

UU: and how we first met is sort of a long story.

CC: and he’s got, like, a different version of the same game?

UU: yep!

UU: he said that was basically how the game worked, and then started comparing it to some sort of babies.

UU: frog babies?  butterfly babies?  jellyfish babies?  fish babies?  i forget which.

UU: he’s going to be launching the game at about the same time as we should be launching it, “circumstantially speaking”.

UU: oh yeah, and he mentioned that we should probably equip something to our strife specibi pre-entry.

CC: huh?

UU: do you have a little green card that came with your sylladex?

CC: yeah?

UU: put something in it that you would feel comfortable fighting stuff with.

CC: alright.  what’d you do for yours?

UU: my rad umbrella.  it’s basically the best thing in existence.  when i figure out how to make it better, i’ll make it shoot flames and eat magic.

CC: cool! i don’t own an umbrella.

UU: well, i’m sure you own something cool.  also setting what sort of stuff you want in your specibus is irreversible, so pick something cool.

UU: hang on, my penpal’s bugging me again.  he wants to talk about the game plan some more.

UU: see ya!

CC: see you later!

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    >Magnus: Put axe in specibus.

You take the card from somewhere, flip it over, and select Axekind.  You put the CRAPPY AXE into the strife specibus.

It does something with your modus cards which probably doesn’t matter.

You can now hit things with your axe more effectively!

>Magnus: Check on mail.

The lever thingie is down, but you were the one that put it down so it didn’t change.  It doesn’t seem like anything has happened.

>Magnus: Carve furniture.

There isn’t anything better to do, so you continue working on a chair you started carving a while back.

Before you can really get much work done, though, someone starts pestering you-- or, not pestering, the text says ‘trolling’?  It’s a chumhandle (or maybe not a chumhandle) that you’ve never seen before.  Weird.

>Magnus: Answer troll/chum.

tongsandGavel [TG] began trolling chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:49 AM.

TG: |f you keep doing +ha+, +he cha|r’s going +o have really lousy legs.

TG: Jus+ saying.

CC: who are you?

TG: |’m a local carpen+er/me+alsm|th!

CC: local?  i know most of the people in the area.

CC: also there’s not a lot of them

TG: Okay, really not local.

TG: Really, are you all so we|rdly squ|shy-look|ng?

CC: what?

TG: Sorry, jus+ wonder|ng.

TG: You’re go|ng +o have a really w|ld day, and | +hough+ | would g|ve you a b|+ of a heads-up.

TG: Abou+ +he day and your cha|r.  |+s legs are no+ go|ng +o look grea+ a+ +h|s ra+e.

CC: what’s with all the +s and |s?

TG: +ha+’s my typ|ng qu|rk!

CC: what does that mean?

TG: |’ll expla|n la+er.  We’re ge++|ng off-+op|c.

TG: +he game |s |n your ma|lbox by now!

CC: huh?  how’d you know about that?

tongsandGavel [TG] ceased trolling chargingCarpenter [CC].

    >Magnus: Check on mail.

It seems that the mysterious troll or whatever might be right!  The flappy thing is back up, which means that someone has interacted with the mailbox since last time you checked, and you maybe heard something while you were busy being confused by the troll that may have been the mailperson coming by.  Maybe.

>Magnus: Get mail.

You don’t bother to take your time.  You start rushing down the stairs and immediately trip over a duck.  You fall the rest of the way down the stairs, get up, and check yourself for scratches.

You’re a little bruised but none the worse for wear.  You go outside.

>Magnus: Continue getting mail.

You open the mailbox.  There’s two envelopes in there.

They’re the two game discs!  You captchalogue both of them separately and now there’s no space in your sylladex to captchalogue anything else.

You rush back up to your room more carefully this time.

>Magnus: Launch game.

You would launch it, but you’re pretty sure it requires two people for it to do anything.  One client player and one server player.

You’re going to need to get one of your friends on this.

>Magnus: Check chums.

Most of your chums are offline now, except for CT, whom you’re pretty sure is always online at least a little bit.  TG, the troll from a few minutes ago, is also offline.

>Magnus: Pester CT.

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at 10:52 AM.

CC: I GOT THE GAME!

CC: but it needs two players in order for it to work.  you up for that?

CT: holy shit, great

CT: uhhhhh

CT: hangon, kemosabe, i’ll go get it

CT: i’m pretty sure my aunt will have a copy or somethin’

CT: she’s obsessed with that game

CC: okay!  i’ll wait for you.

CT: hell yeah, see ya soon.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    You’re going to need to do some waiting.  You’re going to need someone else’s help.

>Meanwhile…

A young flip wizard stands in his bedroom.  This flip wizard has not purchased a personal copy of the game marketed as “the last game you’ll ever need to play”, although his AUNT is very excited for it.  This young flip wizard’s name is just on the tip of your tongue, but you’re not sure what it is yet.  What will the name of this young flip wizard be?

>Enter name.

TAAKO TAACO (?)

There is like no way that that’s… dammit.  These silly names have too much power.

The last name looks like it’s not sure if it’s accepted or not, but still.

Your name is TAAKO [TAACO].  Your friend has just asked you to help him play “THE LAST GAME YOU’LL EVER NEED TO PLAY”, but if there is a copy of it in your house it will have to be with your AUNT.  You have a variety of interests.  You like COOKING, especially MACARONS/OONS.  You appeared on TV once and you WILL NOT LET ANYONE FORGET IT.  You like UNICORNS and own dozens of UNICORN PLUSHIES.  You are surprisingly good at ACROBATICS.  You consider yourself a bit of a WIZARD and like to CHANGE things, and you’re pretty sure you can do anything if you put your MIND to it.

>Taako: Put things in strife specibus.

Your WAND is the obvious solution, but UU also gave you a cool UMBRELLA.  You’re going to want a second strife specibus.

You put the WAND in your strife specibus for now because it’s currently the more magical of the two.

Someone is pestering you.  It’s UU again.  She’s been checking stuff with her pen-pal and reporting it to you all day.

    >Taako: Answer chum.

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at 10:53 AM.

UU: my penpal says it’s probably getting close to go time.

CT: remind me again what he’s gonna be doing?

UU: he’s going to be the server player for one of his friends.

UU: he says he’s a bit nervous, but really excited

UU: (hence why he’s nerding out all over the place)

CT: great,  anyway, CC got his copy of the game

CT: so ch’boy was about to go see if my aunt had a copy

CT: ‘cause like, if anyone’s got the game ‘s gotta be her

UU: great!  a couple reminders that AC wouldn’t let either of us forget:

CT: AC?

UU: my penpal

UU: you need to prototype the kernelsprite at least once.

CT: i’ve got no clue what any of that means, dingus

UU: it means there’s gonna be, like, a kernelsprite, which is a glowy circle thing, and you put something in it.

UU: it’s basically just more nerd stuff.

CT: alright, great

CT: i’m going to go bug my aunt, brb

UU: see ya!

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

    >Taako: Go into hallway.

    The walls have actual lanterns on them, which would probably seem silly to anyone else, but you can appreciate the idea of being Extra.  There’s a few COOKING PROJECTS tucked up on shelves.  Both you and your AUNT love cooking.

Your house is in a pretty old apartment complex, so there’s just one floor to the part of the house that’s actually yours.  Not that there’s anyone in any of the other apartments, but sneaking into them is only somewhat legal, and your AUNT doesn’t want you to get in trouble.

You couldn’t care less about LAW ENFORCEMENT, but you still stay in your apartment some of the time.  Like when you’re AUNT’s home.

Your AUNT should be in the kitchen right now.

>Taako: Go into kitchen.

You peek into the kitchen.  Your AUNT is making cupcakes.  Various COOKING PROJECTS are scattered around the room, even more than usual.

As always, she looks really excited to see you.  She tries to persuade you to help her cook.

Ordinarily, you’d like to do that, but today you elect to engage in a friendly and non-damaging STRIFE instead.

>Friendly-and-non-damaging STRIFE!

You use a couple of the COOKING PROJECTS to your advantage, and your AUNT uses a few of the other COOKING PROJECTS to her advantage.

Okay that’s enough of that for now.

You tell your AUNT about the game.  She looks excited.  She tells you to make sure to keep in touch with your friends while playing the game, and tucks your hair behind your ear.

So embarrassing.

She says she bought a copy of the game basically as soon as it was first mentioned.  Problem is, it should be in your mailbox, which is all the way down the stairs.

She tells you to save time and bring your phone.

That might actually be an okay idea if it weren’t such a weird one.

>Taako: Retrieve phone.

You prefer to use a jury-rigged flip phone for pestering chums, and also a phone with a big cupcake case for apps.  You quickly get both of them from your room and captchalogue them.

>Taako: Be warned about stairs, bro.

You just start going down the stairs.  Fortunately, there are no stair incidents thus far.

The apartment building is not well-maintained.  Even your apartment isn’t especially well-maintained, mostly because you and your AUNT do a lot of travelling.

>Taako: Exit staircase.

You do that.

> ===>

The apartment building’s foyer is presently empty.  It’s usually empty, which is a comparison you could probably make to your life if you were into that kind of stuff.  Maybe you say some deep stuff about the foyer and like the bowl of mints on the desk.  Maybe you just snag a couple of the desk mints.  You consider yourself a bit of an idiot wizard, and saying really deep stuff isn’t your forte.

>Taako: Go into mailbox room.

You go into the room with the mailbox in it.  The two game envelopes are in your mailbox, which is in there.

There’s not very many other people in your apartment building, and most of them don’t have mailboxes, so most of the mailboxes are empty.

There’s an open cleaning closet in the back of this room.

The envelopes have CDs in them, but one of the two envelopes, the server player one, also has a little USB key.  You captchalogue the CDs and take out both of your phones to use them.

>Taako: Boot up game.

You slide the USB key into your cupcake phone and flip open your flip phone to contact CC.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:58 AM.

CT: i have the game, m’dude

CC: GREAT! lemme just boot it up on my computer!

CT: alright, it’s loading,  is it loading for you?

CC: yeah!

CT: hold on, someone’s pestering me

CT: brb

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    As you have already noted, someone is pestering you.  Except… that’s not what the text says?  Huh.

    >Taako: Answer chum (?).

    You don’t recognize this handle.

corporealCorvid [CC] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at 10:58 AM.

CC: This is a bad idea, mate.

CT: what’s a bad idea

CC: Just… It’s an 0verall bad idea.

CT: what

CC: Y0u sh0uld kn0w; y0u’re the 0ne wh0’s g0ing t0 d0 it.

CC: I kn0w I sh0uld be used t0 it by now, but I still d0n’t appreciate the wh0le g0dtier schtick.

CC: innit

CT: huh?

CC: 0r anything else that y0u d0, really.

CC: Also, can y0u please cl0se that?

CT: close what?

CC: That bizarre small back r00m.

CT: the broom closet?

CC: The r00m with the bucket innit.

CT: i don’t know anything about british but i don’t think that’s how they say that

CT: anyway

CT: why?

CC: … Er…

CT: buckets, huh?

CT: look, kemosabe,

CT: i don’t know who you are or what you’re talkin’ about

CT: but i do know that i’m gonna play a game

CT: and it’s gonna be

CC: D0n’t

CT: BUCKETS of fun ;)

CC: Y0u guys are fucked up!  That’s really fucked up!  What the fuck!

CC: I will be back.

corporealCorvid [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

You close the door to the cleaning closet.

>Magnus: Launch SBURB.

The game loads through a cool loading screen and then it’s loaded.  You don’t actually know how it works on the client side, but Taako’s just slamming down some pieces of tech.  Probably.  Based on how the house is rattling.

Taako starts pestering you again.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 10:59 AM.

CT: okay, the uhhh tube thing is in the living room, and the punch card machine is also in the living room, and the lathe dealie is in the hall, and i can’t fit the big launch pad thing anywhere

CT: also what’s with all the ducks

CC: i carved them!  they’re great!

CC: wait, uh, what?

CT: is this like, your actual house?

CC: huh?

CT: the game is showing me a house and a room with you in it,  i put a buncha stuff in it,  is it actually there?

CC: i will go check and be right back.

CT: wait, do you have like a phone or something?

CC: good idea.  i will bring my laptop.

    You captchalogue your laptop and send the empty client player envelope flying out of your sylladex.  It lands on your bed.

    >Magnus: Go check the hallway.

    There’s a lathe in the hall that wasn’t there previously.

CC: it’s actually there.

CT: huh,  guess that’s what UU’s penpal was talkin’ ‘bout vis a vis not understanding how the game works, m’guy.

CT: time for ch’boy to get his home improvement on

CC: no wait, what?

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

    >Magnus: Get to the living room.

   

    There is more stuff in the living room, as Taako already mentioned.  There’s something that looks like a big tube thing with a wheel on the side, and something with a few slots on top and a keypad.

    Also, one of the couches is floating slightly off the ground.

    >Magnus: Turn wheel.

    It’s stuck!  You know it’s stuck hard because you’re really strong.  It seems like it would make the lid come off.

    >Magnus: Whack lid.

    You whack the lid at about 10% strength.  It is undeterred.  You prepare to whack harder.

    >Taako: Contribute.

    You wield the couch that you were levitating with the awesome magic power of tapping the screen and smash it into the lid of the thing.  The lid pops off, and a red-brown glowy something-or-another comes out of it.  Also, something happens around the base of the device, but you can’t tell what it is.  You’re squinting at the screen, but it’s really small because it’s a phone screen.

    Maybe the home improvement can wait.  You throw the couch offscreen and Magnus looks alarmed.

    >Magnus: Read text.

    A sort of mahogany glowball with a pattern like the one that came on the game envelope has popped out of the top of this device.  There’s some small text at the base of the device, and it’s a countdown.

    It reads “11:11”.

    “11:10”

    “11:09”

    Taako starts pestering you again.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 11:00 AM.

CT: what’s the little thing on the bottom of the device say?

CC: it’s some sort of timer.

CT: cool

CT: a timer to what

CC: i don’t know!

CC: there’s 11 minutes on it; it’s counting down.

CT: huh

CT: what’s it counting down to?

CC: i don’t know!

CC: but it’s probably not good!

CT: okay, cool, coolcoolcoolcoolcool,

CT: let’s keep going

CC: also, you placed that thing right in front of the front door.

CT: don’t worry about it,

CT: did you forget about the awesome home improvement powers?

CC: what?

Taako: Get your HOME IMPROVEMENT on.

You delete a chunk of wall next to the door.  Magnus does not look as impressed as he really should.

Magnus: Turn wheel.

A cylinder made of some sort of material pops out of the tube.  The countdown continues.

Magnus: Inspect punch card machine.

It looks like a machine to put punch cards in.

CC: what are all these things called anyway?

CT: lemme just check the thingie

CT: the timer dealie is called a cruxtruder

CT: that thing right there is a punch designix

CT: the thing in the hall is a totem lathe

CT: and the thing that can’t fit anywhere because it’s too big is the alchemiter

CC: that’s a lot of weird words.

CT: i know right

CC: what should i put in this thing?

CT: well, punch cards obviously

CT: there aren’t any in here

CT: wait, there is one, but it’s ‘pre-punched’

CT: here you go

Taako throws the pre-punched punch card at you.  It lands on your head, which is really smooth and graceful.

CC: it sort of looks like a captchalogue card!

CC: and it’s got like a captcha on the back.

CT: so maybe you put those in the machine

CC: great, i’ve only got five of those and they’re all full.

CT: um

CT: try moving one of your items onto the pre-punched card

CC: that isn’t working!

CT: great

CT: are there any more captcha cards in your house

CC: probably.

CC: i think there might be some stashed under the sink.

    Magnus: Check bathroom sink for captcha cards.

You go into the bathroom just on time to see Taako rip the sink cupboard doors off their hinges.

CC: was that necessary?

CT: i just wanted to throw them open

CT: there’s no control in this system at all, m’dude

Taako drops the cupboard doors in the bathtub.  You check under the sink to see if there’s any captcha cards there.

T.P., shampoo, other cleaning products, sawdust, a WOODEN DUCK, a handful of ENGINEERING SCHEMATICS, and… jackpot!  Three captcha cards.

The weird glowball followed you in here.

Magnus: Captchalogue captchalogue cards.

You captchalogue one of the captchalogue cards in the other captchalogue card and leave the third one blank.  You check the back of the captchalogue card, remembering that there was something on the back of the pre-punched one.

There’s some numbers on the back of this one.

There’s a thunk outside the door.  You look up, and the bathtub appears to have been moved.

Magnus: Return to main area.

You go to open the door and-- uh-oh.

The door is stuck.  You think you might have an idea as to why.

CC: taako?

CT: no

CC: did you put the bathtub outside of the door?

CT: i have no idea what you’re talking about

CT: what bathtub

CT: what’s a bathtub i’ve never seen one

CC: can you please do something about the bathtub or the door?

CC: i can’t get out of the room.

CT: alright alright

    Taako pops the door off its hinges again.  You move out of the way as it lands on the bathroom floor.  Then he drags the bathtub over to your DAD’s study’s door and plops it down there.

    Well…

You go into the living room again.  The timer says “10:25”.

“10:24”

“10:23”

>Magnus: Captchalogue pre-punched card and weird cylinder.

You captchalogue the pre-punched card and the weird cylinder.  The other captcha card moves out of its captchalogued position and into your sylladex.  You scribble a note about the code on the back of that card in case you forget it.

You go into the hallway where the lathe is.  The glowball follows you.

Come to think of it, the lathe bit of the lathe is about the right size for the weird cylinder.  You’re more used to regular lathes for wood, but this should be basically the same, right?

>Magnus: Put cylinder into lathe.

You put the cylinder into the lathe.  There’s actually a little label on the captchalogue card that says the cylinder is a cruxite dowel.

>Magnus: Lathe dowel.

You get out your CARPENTRY TOOLS and set the lathe spinning.  Some sort of carving mechanism extends down towards it, but settles away from it.  You start carving the cruxite and spend a couple minutes on it.

>Magnus: Admire creation.

It uhhh… you could do better if you had more time.  The weird glowball seems to be done with your antics.

KERNELSPRITE: [][][][][][][][][]

MAGNUS: what?

KERNELSPRITE: [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]!!!!

You have no idea what it’s saying, but to be fair this is a pretty stupid course of action.

>Magnus: Get more cruxite.

You quickly do that.  The timer’s still going, but you don’t look at it.

CT: wait, d’you know what that glowy dealie is?

CT: ‘cause i just remembered UU said something about a glowy dealie sprite thing

CC: i don’t know.  it can talk, sort of?

CT: huh iunno

CT: she said it’d be a glowy circle and you’d need to put somethin’ in it

CC: well, it can’t hurt.

CT: how about the couch?

CC: put that down!  this feels important, and i don’t want to mess it up by putting a couch into it.

CT: aight

CC: and stop just throwing the couches all over the place.  you’re going to ruin my house!

CC: OH NO!

When Taako threw the couch away from the sprite, it took a big chunk out of the head of the giant WOODEN BEAR that you carved.  The bear’s not destroyed, but there’s a big indent in its face.

CC: that was my favourite bear carving.

CT: shit dude, sorry

CT: uhhh

CT: we could, like…

CC: PUT THE BEAR DOWN!

CC: CAREFULLY!

CT: we could put it in the sprite

CC: …

CC: fine.

    >Taako: Put bear in sprite.

You very carefully place the DEFACED WOODEN BEAR into the kernel without letting go of it, in case it is going to fall down afterwards.  Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be about to fall down, because the glowball starts glowing really brightly and for a second you can’t tell what’s going on in Magnus’s house.

>Magnus: Inspect sprite.

Instead of a SBURB-looking pattern, the glowball now displays an image of the bear’s head and all its damage.

MAGNUS: are you happy with that?

BEARSPRITE: [][][

paw][][paw][paw][]

BEARSPRITE: [paw][][][][][paw][paw][paw][]!!!

MAGNUS: hmm.

The timer reads “09:14”.

“09:13”

“09:12”

>Magnus: Go back to lathe.

You go back to the lathe and put the new thing of cruxite in it.  There are some controls on the other side of it, so you squish past it and look at the controls.

There’s a place where you could maybe put, like, a sheet of paper?

>Magnus:  Put pre-punched card into totem lathe.

You do that.

The lathe starts spinning and yields a carved cruxite dowel.  You captchalogue it.

Your sprite suddenly starts flipping the fuck out.  It seems to want to get to your room.

BEARSPRITE: [][paw]![paw][paw][][][paw][][paw][][]!!!!

MAGNUS: what?

BEARSPRITE: [paw]!!!!!!!

>Magnus: Go to your room.

You make your way back to your room.  At first, you don’t see anything odd, but then your sprite goes over to your FISHTANK.

Your FISH, STEVEN, does not look good.

CC: oh no

CT: what is it, m’guy

CC: my fish is dying.

CT: uh

CT: you could put it in the sprite?

CT: can you do that?

CT: i’ll check with UU

CC: that’s actually a good idea!

CT: now i’m going to find somewhere to put this other thing down

CT: uh have fun with your fish i guess

CT: shit nvm iunno

CT: brb i just have to close this chat window to contact UU

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering  chargingCarpenter [CC] .

>Taako: Check with UU.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering  umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 11:03 AM.

CT: hey listen, i’ve got a real important question

UU: shoot.

CT: can you put multiple things in a sprite and if so how many?

UU: according to AC, you can put a maximum of two things in a sprite.

CT: can they be dead things?

UU: i don’t see why not.

CT: great

UU: how are things going on your end btw?

UU: AC says his client player is getting there.

CT: i think they’re goin’ pretty good

CT: like, nothing’s gone wrong yet

CT: is the alchemiter important?  it’s just real big

UU: i’ve been relaying things to you all day about this: it’s real important

CT: great

CT: don’t die aight?

UU: got it.  you also try not to die.

CT: no problemo, kemosabe

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering  umbraUnquenchable [UU] .

>Taako: Give Magnus the good news.

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering  chargingCarpenter [CC] at 11:04 AM.

CT: you can put it in your sprite

CC: thanks, i guess.

CT: no big dealio

CT: now, i’m gonna put this alchemiter somewhere

>Taako: Put alchemiter somewhere.

You get your HOME IMPROVEMENT on and rip out a couple walls to make space in the hallway right in front of Magnus’s room.  You put all the ducks in a pile and squish the alchemiter into the space vacated.

It occurs to you that Magnus might not be able to get out of his room at this rate.  You--

CONNECTION LOST

Oh, fuck.

>Magnus: Prototype sprite x2.

You very carefully use a smaller bowl to scoop up STEVEN and place him in the sprite.  The sprite fills the room with light, and then it nervously zooms out the window.

Wow, thanks, STEVEN.  You should probably go check on the timer that was on that thing.  The idea of having a time limit going is making you slightly nervous.

You can’t get out of your room; the door won’t open.

CC: taako?

CC: can you fix this?

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] has lost connection!

CC: uh-oh.

You check the time on your laptop.  Based on some basic math, you have about six minutes left before the timer runs out.

>Taako: Refresh connection.

The internet doesn’t usually go down around your place.  It’s pretty good internet.  You refresh the connection, but it seems like wi-fi is just down.

You look outside.  The internet tower should be somewhere, and it should be intact, but you don’t know where it is.

It’s possible that the cable isn’t down.  You need to get back to your apartment and check.

You very carefully, so as to not be warned about stairs, start hightailing it up the stairs.  This may take several minutes.

>Approximately thirty minutes in the past… 

A crunchy nature boy stands in his bedroom.  This crunchy nature boy has just been called downstairs by his GRAMPS.  He is relatively oblivious about ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’, but that is about to change.

This crunchy boy certainly has a name, but it could be almost anything.  Why don’t we take a guess at it, shall we?

>Enter name.

[ X ] MERLE HITOWER

Okay, so it rejected that one.  Good to know that the function of rejecting a name actually exists in this system.  Let’s take another shot at it.

>Try again.

MERLE HIGHCHURCH

That’s literally basically the same-- nope, it liked it, that’s his name, what is even going on here.

Your name is MERLE HIGHCHURCH.  As previously mentioned, your GRAMPS wants to talk to you.  You have a variety of interests.  You like NATURE… in, uh, MORE WAYS THAN ONE.  You have gone to CLERICAL SLASH HEALING CAMP several times, but it wasn’t really fun and you were NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.  You like THE BEACH and by extension THE OCEAN.  You really like finding THE TRUTH, although you are inclined to disagree with people who think that it is best found within the PAGES of a good book, and you are inclined to take a JOYFUL OUTLOOK ON LIFE when possible.  You live a quiet yet somewhat fulfilling LIFE.

What will you do?

>Merle: Look outside.

Your window provides you an excellent view of THE OCEAN.  There’s not really much else to say about the view.  The ocean is slightly choppy today, but not like extremely so.

>Merle: Get computer.

You grab your PDA, which is the only portable digital item you own, and captchalogue it.

>Merle: Put things in strife specibus.

You put your HAMMER in your strife specibus.

>Merle: Go into living room.

Your GRAMPS is puzzling over something in his office at the moment, probably.  There’s a variety of HOUSEHOLD PLANTS in the hallway, and one of your GRAMPS’s BELOVED NOVELS.  You live in a one-floored house, so there aren’t any stairs to go down.

Your GRAMPS is too busy working on something to come out of his office, so the conversation is through his office door, which is sort of awkward.

>Merle: Hold sort of awkward conversation with your gramps.

He’s talking about how today is very important to something.  He says something about the future and understanding risk and that sort of stuff, as well as something about some sort of riddle.

He says there’s several important things in the shed.  He’s unlocked the trapdoor in the shed remotely so that you can go into it.

You did not know that there was a trapdoor in the shed.  He informs you that some of the stuff in there was an emotional burden and some of it was just pretty delicate.  Also, some of it could be dangerous.  He gives you a heads-up that the thing in a locked box right in the back could, in fact, be very dangerous; it’s mysterious enough that no matter how much he looks into it he’s still not sure why it does what it does.

Oh, and there’s also some discs in there that will probably be useful later.  He says to be careful with them.

>Merle: Cuddle up to a plant.

Now might not be the time, but does that stop you?  No!  Seriously, though, let’s not do this.  The office door is surprisingly permeable to sound.

Your GRAMPS might not quite be actually grandparent-aged, but you’ve never really called him anything else.

>Merle: Go outside.

You do that.

> ===>

The ocean laps at the beach a short distance away, fairly close to the shed that your GRAMPS said housed very cool stuff.  The sky is clear, the sun is bright, and your garden is lovely.  A faint wind makes the ocean slightly choppy, but not much.  It’s a lovely day, and you say some deep stuff about it.

In the distance, something bright and fiery streaks down from the sky and lands in the ocean.  Ripples spread out from it, and you don’t know what that was, but you have the faintest, sneaking suspicion that it might be a long day.

>Merle: Go into shed.

The shed is full of BOOKSHELVES and GARDENING EQUIPMENT.  A trapdoor at the back of the shed is popped open.

You didn’t know that was there before, but now it does seem pretty clear, now that it’s open.

>Merle: Go down trapdoor.

You make your way down the trapdoor ladder.  There’s a shed basement, apparently.  You can’t see anything down here.  You fiddle around on the wall until you find the lights.

You’re in a shed basement hallway, of sorts.  The lighting is very LED, stark and bright, and the walls are smoothly metallic.  You go into the next room.

There’s several large screens in this room, and a box right at the back.  It looks like some kind of safe.

>Merle: Inspect largest screen.

It’s an electronic map of the world marked with many little dots of varying colours, ranging from blue to red.  Most of them are green.  One of the dots over a small town a moderate distance east, in the next time zone over, and a larger distance north of your present location (and that’s on a pretty big zoom) is yellow, but getting very close to orange.  A very small number of them are red, including one out in the ocean a ways but close to where you would picture your present location to be.

>Merle: Zoom in on present location.

The red dot you noticed earlier is, in fact, just a short ways out into the ocean from your present location on the west coast.  There are several vaguely lime-ish green dots scattered around your vicinity.  There’s a dot directly over your exact present location that’s slightly bigger than the others, and a less lime and more regular green dot centered over your house but covering a larger area that’s very notably bigger than that.

>Merle: Zoom all the way out.

The biggest dots are also the bluest dots.  The two biggest dots are both over a city on the east coast, while the next biggest is out in the ocean somewhere.

You have no idea what any of this could possibly mean.

>Merle: Inspect smallest screen.

It looks sort of like an arcade game?  Those are fun.  It’s got a little pad off to the side.

It doesn’t look like it’s working properly, though.

>Merle: Inspect third screen.

This looks like just a computer with a really big screen.  Two envelopes are lying on top of it.  You’re not sure what to do with it, so you don’t touch it yet.

>Merle: Inspect safe.

It’s locked!  This is probably the thing GRAMPS thought might be dangerous.

Through the edges of the door of the safe, which has some sort of password lock, you can see faint bluish light.

>Merle: Hit safe with hammer.

The safe is utterly undeterred.

>Merle: Challenge safe to a Dexterity contest.

This sort of stuff isn’t your thing, but you try to throw the safe up in the air and dodge it.

It’s bolted to the floor.

>Merle: Challenge safe to a Strength contest.

You try to lift the box into the air really good, but it’s still bolted to the floor.

>Merle: Challenge safe to a Constitution contest.

You would try to kill the box with poison and see if that made it open, but you don’t have any poison and there’s no way you could get the poison into the box.

>Merle: Turn on big computer.

You boot it up.  The background says ‘SKAIANET’ on it in big letters.

There’s two browsers downloaded onto the computer, including the one you use, which is called ‘PAN’.  It is sort of a strange name for a browser (you tried one called ‘MORTHAMMER DUIN’ for a while but it was too long a name to remember), but to be fair, whoever named the browsers was probably very strange.

Magnus apparently uses a browser called ‘POWER BEAR’, so you mean, it’s not that weird.  Taako’s browser of choice is one that you’ve also looked into but decided against, but it’s somewhat more reasonably named in that it’s called ‘ISTUS’.

There probably is no significance to these browsers whatsoever.

>Merle: Goof around on computer for a while.

You open up PAN and start looking up gardening tips.  This continues for almost 30 minutes, and then someone starts pestering you (on your PDA, because you haven’t downloaded Pesterchum on the big computer yet).

Or… not so much ‘pestering’ as ‘trolling’.  You vaguely recognise the handle from a while ago, but it’s been a while since they’ve contacted you.

>Merle: Answer troll.

carpeAstrum [CA] began trolling  truthAura [TA] at 10:05 AM.

CA: 7oday’s your big day.

CA: Are you ready?

TA: Ready for what?

CA: Ready for a lo7 of 7hings.

CA: 7here’s informa7ion abou7 7he game in 7he room you’re in?

TA: There was a game?

CA: … 

CA: I7’s 7hose 7wo discs.  7hey’re on top of the compu7er you’re using.

CA: It migh7 be, er, a very in7eres7ing 7ime?

CA: I had some 7rouble wi7h i7, but 7ha7 was because of some7hing we 7hough7 would be unique to our session.

CA: I7 seems 7ha7 is some7hing you will also need 7o con7end wi7h.

CA: You may wan7 7o connec7 wi7h your friend as soon as possible.

TA: Huh?

CA: Jus7 be careful.

TA: What do you mean by ‘something you will also need to contend with’?

CA: I7’s 7he i7em in 7he box.  I7… we’re really no7 sure why i7’s no7 where i7 originally was, and why it wound up in our session in 7he firs7 place?

CA: Bu7 now 7ha7 i7’s here, 7here’s an ex7ra risk for you specifically.  I7 should hopefully be safer in your session.

CA: Speaking of which, 7here’s abou7… four minu7es and 7hir7een seconds before 7hings s7ar7 really happening for you and your friends.

TA: What?

CA: Check 7he o7her large screen.

carpeAstrum [CA] ceased pestering  truthAura [TA] .

>Merle: Check other large screen.

The dot over the small town from earlier is very orange, getting close to red.

You still don’t know what this screen is trying to show you.

>Magnus: Look outside.

You’ve been trying the door every couple seconds, and it hasn’t been working.  The sprite has just drifted past your window again; it’s flipping out.

You look out your window.  There’s something in the sky.

>Magnus: Get binoculars.

They’re really not very good binoculars, but squinting through them to look at the bright object in the sky you can see that it sort of looks like a streak of fire?

It also looks like it’s headed your way.

Where the heck is Taako?

>Taako: Get up stairs.

There’s just a few more flights of stairs to go before you can get back to your apartment, but you’re not there yet.

>Merle: Ask about dots.

truthAura [TA] began pestering  carpeAstrum [CA] at 10:07 AM.

TA: I don’t understand what this is trying to tell me.

TA: What are all these dots?

CA: 7hey’re me7eors.

TA: What??

truthAura [TA] has ceased pestering carpeAstrum [CA] .

You’ve gotta tell Magnus!

>Magnus: Recieve pestering.

truthAura [TA] began pestering  chargingCarpenter [CC] at 11:07 AM.

TA: They’re meteors.

CC: huh?

TA: There’s a world map in my shed basement and the dots are meteors.

CC: i don’t understand how this… oh.

CC: OH.

TA: There’s one coming at you!

CC: thanks, but i already noticed!

CC: i’m just waiting for CT to get back, because i’m sort of stuck in my room right now!

TA: Well, that’s bad.

CC: yeah.

CC: i’ll give you status updates if i’m not meteor goo in the next… three minutes.

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering  truthAura [TA] .

>Taako: Reach apartment.

You get to your apartment.  Your AUNT is still baking up a storm.  You ask her what happened to the wi-fi and she sort of shrugs and says it probably crashed.

It’s really good wi-fi, and it shouldn’t crash ever.

>Taako: Put server player disc in computer.

You stuff the disc into your computer and the connection comes back on.

There’s about two minutes to go, so no time to pester Magnus.  It’s time for action.

You get your HOME IMPROVEMENT on with a new focus.

>Magnus: Flip out.

You are fortunately saved from too much freaking out when your bedroom door is ripped from its hinges and thrown out the window.  Great!

>Magnus: Put cruxite dowel in thing in hall.

You get out both cruxite dowels: the one you carved and the one from the pre-punched card.  You stick the pre-punched one onto the alchemiter’s little pad.  The other one can probably wait, and you reluctantly recaptchalogue it.

The alchemiter produces what looks like a super tiny tree, except made of the same stuff cruxite dowels are made of, which is probably cruxite.

It says the little tree is called a cruxite artifact.

You have no idea what to do with this.

>Magnus: Check on progress of meteor.

You captchalogue the binoculars and make your way downstairs, where you can see the timer’s progress and can see the location of the meteor through the door that Taako got his HOME IMPROVEMENT on in.

The timer’s counting down.  “00:11”.

“00:10”.

“00:09”.

>Magnus: Get out cruxite artifact.

You do that.  Through the door, you can see the meteor in the sky, really close.

“00:07”.

>Magnus: Chop it in half.

What?

>[Would be S if that were a thing] Magnus: Enter.

(Picture this part set to a mashup of SBURBan Countdown from Homestuck and The Purple Worm from TAZ.)

Magnus is the doorway looking up at the meteor.  It’s coming down fast.  The cruxite artifact is there.

In the background, we see STEVENSPRITE flipping out.

We see Taako trying to use his HOME IMPROVEMENT skills on the meteor unsuccessfully.  We see Merle watching the dot tick from orange to red.

We see the other three future players in silhouette, mostly oblivious to this: crossbowGoose, tall and just slightly less muscular than Magnus, absolutely kicking butt in Fantasy League of Legends; camouflagedAzure, short and lean with pointy hair, carefully shaving a strip of wood off a carved duck.  We see the silhouette of umbraUnquenchable leaning into her own computer, silently stressing over something else entirely.

We don’t see her pen-pal, but we see a hand clicking a mouse, silhouetted against a very bad view of a screen with a strange-looking building on it under attack by a meteor of its own.

We see the box in Merle’s shed basement and the faint glow in it.  We zoom through it, but very quickly, to the point where we can’t see anything that’s inside it.

But we do see a blank eye open up on a dark background.  A pupil that looks like it’s made of black opal materialises in it and glances from side to side, then rolls up to the top of the eye and out of sight as the eye closes.

And then we cut back to Magnus.  He’s holding his axe like he intends to fight the meteor; he’s holding the cruxite artifact like he’s not sure what to do with it, and he glances between the two.  He’s silhouetted against the fire coming down from above.

We see the timer read “00:03”.  We see the meteor up close as the timer reads “00:02” and then “00:01”.

And as the timer hits “00:00”, we see Magnus’s house be swallowed up by a mahogany-coloured light, the same colour as his sprite and a wave of fire, almost simultaneously.

And then a red curtain swings closed, and the cutscene ends.


	2. Act II Act I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus takes a power nap. Taako creates, like, the best thing in existence. Merle is warned about getting wanged over. Killian grapples with an elevator problem. Carey does some sweet flips.

>Act II

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: hey! i’m alright!

CT: yeah, you are

CT: what happened?

CC: i’m not sure.

CT: great

CT: well, where are you, m’guy?

CT: in general, i mean

CT: i can still see your house on the screen

CC: that’s a really good question.

 

>Magnus: Look around.

 

Your yard is mostly gone, except for a really tall pillar of dirt and stone that extends below your house. In the distance, a few more semi-tall stone pillars extend up, and in fact there is lots of dramatic reddish cliffs and ravines. Quite a few waterfalls pour from the tops of the cliffs to the ground far below, where they turn into rivers, and bridges connect several of the cliffs.

 

LAND OF HEIGHT AND RAPIDS

 

Far above, you can see seven glowing… circles? They’re the same colour as your sprite and the same shape as the pattern on one of the envelopes. If you continue to track them all the way up, you can see a brilliant blue ball up in the sky, with clouds tracing across its surface.

 

CC: i don’t know, but it’s new.

CT: and not under attack by meteors

CC: that is an advantage.

CC: i’m going to go give merle the heads-up that i’m not meteor dead, brb

 

>Magnus: Pester Merle.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering truthAura [TA] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: hey, just wanted to tell you that i’m not dead.

TA: Great!

TA: Uh, how did you get out of that?

CC: oh you know, the usual,

CC: chopped a small tree in half, teleported into a cliff place, that sort of stuff.

CC: no but really i’m not entirely sure.

CC: i’m going to explore this place and see what’s going on, uh, if i can get down safely.

CC: d’you know anyone i could talk to to try to figure out what is up with this?

TA: UU has been talking about it all day, hasn’t she?

CC: great point!

CC: i’ll check with her and see.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

>Magnus: Pester UU.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: hey, d’you know what’s going on?

CC: you there?

UU: sorry, mags, i’m busy talking with my penpal.

UU: it’s a bit of an emergency on his end, babe.

CC: dang it.

CC: hey, could you hook me up with your penpal or something?

CC: he could probably explain what’s going on!

UU: i’m not sure how you’d contact him; he set me up with some stuff to make it work.

UU: the first time, he actually contacted me.

UU: wait, stuff’s going down, gotta go!

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

You don’t have any other ideas.

Wait!

You scroll through the list of people who contacted you recently until you come to that mystery one.

 

>Magnus: Pester troll.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering tongsandGavel [TG] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: do you have any idea what’s going on?

TG: Yes.

CC: then what’s going on and also where is this place and what happened there?

TG: +ha+’s easy. +h|s |s how SGRUB/SBURB works.

TG: Welcome +o +he Med|um.

TG: Bu+ l|ke, |f you wan+ more |nforma+|on, +HA+’S WHA+ YOUR SPR|+E |S FOR!

CC: my sprite?

TG: Yeah. You should go f|nd |+.

TG: Also, you’re no+ as good a+ f|gh+|ng as you +h|nk.

CC: hey, i’m great at fighting!

TG: Sure.

 

tongsandGavel [TG] has ceased trolling chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

>Magnus: Find sprite.

 

You go inside and start looking for your sprite, but are distracted by some dark-ish streaks on the floor. It sort of looks like some sort of clay?

That wasn’t there before…

 

>Magnus: Don’t worry about it!

 

You ascend the stairs and squish past the alchemiter to get into your room. Your sprite is not there. Maybe Taako’s seen it.

 

CC: hey, have you seen my sprite?

CT: hang on, just lemme look around

 

You take this opportunity to also look around your room. It’s significantly the worse for wear.

 

CT: ‘s in the backyard

CC: great, thanks.

CC: wait, i just heard something.

CT: what was it

CC: i dunno.

CC: sounded roar-y sorta.

CT: i’ll go check it out, m’guy, don’t worry

CC: i’m not worried.

CC: maybe it’s just my sprite.

CT: yeah that makes sense

CC: still check, though.

CT: sure, no biggie

 

You sort of wait awkwardly for Taako to go check out the noise.

 

>Magnus: Wait awkwardly.

 

There are more noises. And like, you’re not worried, but TG did just diss your fighting ability, so like… 

You should probably just go find your sprite and--

 

>Magnus: Turn around.

 

It shouldn’t be a big deal or a monster or anything, but you think you just heard another noise behind you. It shouldn’t be a b--

Something short and heavy slams into you from behind. You turn around just in time to see that whatever it is has lots of pointy teeth, gills, and wooden-looking bear ears, but also objectively isn’t a bear. Or your sprite.

What the heck?

 

>Magnus: STRIFE!

 

The thing just starts decking you. Ouch.

Taako’s pestering you again. That’s going to have to wait, because you’re currently being clobbered by something.

You get out your axe, but don’t have time to AGGRIEVE properly because you have to AVOID its attacks.

It seems like it’s sort of made of clay, maybe?

You stick your axe into it just in time to notice a second one menacing one of your WOODEN DUCKS. The first one seems like that’s had some effect but it’s still standing.

You roll over to get the first one off of you and hurry over to the second one, which drops the duck. You just smack the second one with the flat end of your axe, which, okay, not great tactics for getting rid of baddies efficiently, but you’re sort of flipping out over the risk to your WOODEN DUCKS.

The first one tackles you again, and it goes sort of like a really dumb game of dominoes where you fall directly onto the second one.

You AGGRESS the second one with your axe a couple times and it pretty much explodes into what sort of looks like blue and red-brown FRUIT GUSHERS? It probably isn’t that, though.

The first one AGGRESSES you a couple more times as well, just decks you, and seriously if this continues it’s going to be a problem. You hit the first one with your axe and it explodes, pinata-style, the same way the other one did.

You ascend up a tier on your ECHELADDER, a concept which you didn’t really know existed, and gain a handful of boondollars.

You pick up one of the FRUIT GUSHER-LOOKING THINGS and it sort of disappears? What is even happening anymore? You pick up the rest of them just to be sure.

 

>TG: Notice this tomfoolery.

 

We don’t see what TG is doing, but we do see the part where Magnus is sort of getting his butt kicked playing on a computer screen with some writing along the top that is not in the Latin alphabet, or any other alphabet one might be familiar with.

 

>Magnus: Check pesterlog.

 

Right, Taako has been pestering you every few seconds since pretty much as soon as that thing decked you.

 

CT: it’s something called a clay imp?

CT: it’s got like a nametag over its head on my screen

CT: it’s also got ears that look like your bear and, uh, gills? iunno, kemosabe

CT: wait oh shit

CT: hey there, m’dude

CT: imma drop a wall on that second one, kay?

CT: crap

CT: it says ‘out of grist’

CT: shit, what? there was a build resource this whole time and i didn’t notice?

CT: hey, i think those lil’ polygonal whatevers are grist, because now we’ve got more of it

CT: good job us!

CC: alright, so if i beat up these clay imps, they drop grist?

CT: yeah, lemme check,

CT: build grist and clay, which is also grist

CC: great.

CC: i’m going to go down to the backyard now and chat up my sprite.

CT: great

CT: just a headsup, there are way more of those monsters running around

CT: iunno where they came from, m’guy, but they’re in your house now

CC: oh great.

 

>Magnus: Go outside carefully.

 

You have your axe at the ready as you make your way outside, and there are a whole bunch of imps in the front room.

They’ve dragged the bathtub away from the door, and the cannon is also gone or moved. That doesn’t really bode well.

You slide down the railing and do some sort of really badass jump thing to avoid most of the imps and get through the door. It’s really badass until you fall on your face immediately afterwards.

You get up and see your sprite, which is no longer a little glowball and looks more like a cool ghost. It’s still tinted the same mahogany red, though.

 

MAGNUS: hey, uh, could you explain what’s going on here?

MAGNUS: i mean, i know you’re my dead fish and probably not the best expert on the situation, but like,

MAGNUS: what happened a couple minutes ago and also where am i?

STEVENSPRITE: there was a meteor!

MAGNUS: i know that.

STEVENSPRITE: you used the cruxite artifact!

MAGNUS: yeah. i just don’t get how it worked.

STEVENSPRITE: it brought you into the medium!

STEVENSPRITE: you’re just, really great, by the way

MAGNUS: alright, so this is called the medium?

STEVENSPRITE: yeah! and this planet is LOHAR!

STEVENSPRITE: and that’s skaia, and the little golden moon planet is prospit, and the purple moon planet is derse, and they fight in the battlefield in the middle of skaia, and you want to build your house up to those seven gates, and--

MAGNUS: hold on, hold on. slow down, you’re talking way too fast.

STEVENSPRITE: the gates! those are the really important part! there’s seven of them and you want to build your house up to all of them!

MAGNUS: alright, so we need to make my house taller? i’ll get taako on that.

MAGNUS: (wait, i’m going to have to trust taako with this sort of home improvement? crap!)

MAGNUS: and this planet is… low-har?

STEVENSPRITE: yeah! LOHAR, land of height and rapids!

STEVENSPRITE: there’s a lot of story here probably! uh, like the meaning of true strength!

MAGNUS: okay, that shouldn’t be a problem. strength is like, when you lift a really big rock really well.

STEVENSPRITE: this place is a great opportunity to get exploring! and do cool stuff like understand things! magnus, you’re really great and you should be really good at this!

MAGNUS: alright, got it. i’ll tell taako what i found out.

 

>Magnus: Tell Taako about spritely discoveries.

 

CC: stevensprite said you need to make my house just really tall, so that it could get to the gates, and that this planet is called lohar.

CT: cool

CC: which i guess means you have express permission to get your home improvement on in specifically a vertical direction.

CT: got it, bubuleh

CT: keep stabbing imps so that i can actually do that

CC: got it.

 

>Taako: Get HOME IMPROVEMENT on in vertical direction.

 

You plan to copy and paste Magnus’s entire house on top of itself, but you don’t have nearly enough grist for that yet. You settle for just copying his bathroom and welding it to the chimney.

This is going to be a beautiful house when you’re done with it.

 

>Magnus: Keep stabbing imps.

 

You attempt to kick down the door, except for that there isn’t a door in the hole in the wall and the actual door doesn’t open anymore so you just dramatically kick the air. You fight the large quantity of imps semi-gracefully slash with more immediate success than last time, and collect all the grist from them.

 

>Magnus: Check on DAD.

 

He’s not there. Huh… that can’t be good.

 

>Magnus: Enter code from captchalogued captchalogue card into punch designix.

 

You enter code from captchalogued captchalogue card into punch designix. It doesn’t immediately do anything.

 

>Magnus: Stick a captcha card into punch designix.

 

You do that, and it comes out punched.

 

>Magnus: Do all the steps you did with the pre-punched card with new punched card.

 

You carve a cruxite dowel with the punched instructions, and all that jazz. You stick the carved dowel onto the alchemiter, and it tells you that you need 1 unit of any type of grist to make that. You do that and make a bunch of them. You don’t need to carve more dowels after the first dowel, it seems, but you now have a whole big stack of captchalogue cards.

 

>Magnus: Put hand-carved dowel onto alchemiter platform.

 

You put it onto the alchemiter’s platform. The alchemiter looks sort of confused, and then tells you you would need eighteen and three-sevenths units of build grist, one-nineteenth of a unit of clay, and similarly fractitious amounts of several other types of grist that you haven’t found yet, and that it would make what looks like a combination rocket pack, axe, painting of a football player fighting a horse, and flaming sword, except it seems like it would combine all the useless parts, so you wouldn’t get the sharp parts of the axe or sword, you would mostly get the handles, and the rocket pack’s rockets would be replaced with the part of the painting that shows the horse’s leg, but resized really poorly, with no regard for aspect ratios.

 

This is obviously the ultimate weapon.

 

>Merle: Be pestered by someone.

 

Meanwhile, back at the beach… 

Someone’s pestering you. Wait, no, it says ‘trolling’ again, but it’s a different person from last time. The other one has contacted you previously, but this one is new.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:18 AM.

 

GC: You need to connect w1th your fr1ends, A.S.A.P.

TA: Huh?

GC: Spec1f1cally, Taako. You need to boot up your game and set up w1th Taako.

TA: What, why?

GC: Check the meteor t1m1ng software.

GC: 1f you don’t get go1ng, you’re all go1ng to be ser1ously wanged over.

TA: Alright?

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

>Merle: Check status of dots.

 

You look at the computer with the dots on it and check how close to collision the next big one is.

The next closest dot is over a very small city-- if you zoom in enough, it seems to be centered on some apartment building. It might be somewhere near where Taako lives, come to think of it. It’s about to land in… about six minutes.

That’s, uh, pretty soon.

 

>Taako: Be pestered by Merle.

 

truthAura [TA] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at 11:19 AM.

 

TA: You, er, you’ve really gotta get out of there.

CT: what why

TA: There’re more meteors on their way, and I think they’re headed your way.

CT: great, uh, just super

CT: so what’s the plan

TA: I don’t know. Uh… the game!

CT: aight

CT: have you got the game?

TA: Yeah, I’ve got these discs right here that I think are supposed to be the game.

TA: SBURB, right?

CT: yeah

CT: lemme just give mags the headsup that i’m gonna be busy for a while

CT: set up your computer in the meantime

TA: Alright.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

>Taako: Give Magnus heads-up of meteor status.

 

You make a point to copy and paste a big swath of his house on top of itself first. It doesn’t look very structurally sound, so you stick two chimneys and a stack of doors under it. HOME IMPROVEMENT, aw yeah!

You recall that Merle is probably going to be doing HOME IMPROVEMENT on your house soon, and suddenly feel somewhat more nervous about that than you did about the coming meteor. Not that either of those are very much, because you like to be chill about this kind of thing.

 

CT: hey, look, m’dude, ch’boy’s gotta go

CC: huh? why?

CT: there’s a meteor headed for my place or somethin’

CC: oh, okay.

CC: so is the plan to go medium-ward?

CT: that’s the plan

CT: good luck on not dying or anythin’

CC: same to you.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] has ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

>Taako: Insert client disc into computer.

 

You slide the client disc into the computer and it connects with Merle’s server disc. It goes through a cool loading sequence and then is loaded.

You should probably tell Merle what to do with this, since he’s not exactly a wizard with electronics.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering truthAura [TA] at 11:20 AM.

 

CT: select the things out of the thingie and then click and drag to put them places, m’dude

CT: please put them in reasonable places

TA: What do I do with this?

TA: Wait, thanks.

CT: please put them in reasonable places that are my apartment

TA: Okay.

 

>Taako: Find stuff.

 

The cruxtruder replaces where your bed was, which really isn’t necessary, like, how are you going to get your beauty sleep if your bed is in the staircase. The UNICORN PLUSHIES that were on your bed are scattered all around the base of the cruxtruder now. The pre-punched card is lying on top of a plate of chicken. The totem lathe is squished into the living room, it sounds like. And uh…

 

CT: did you put the alchemiter on the roof?

TA: It didn’t fit anywhere else!

CT: well fuck, my man, now i have to go onto the roof

CT: but first, can you drop something on top of that tube?

TA: Okay.

 

Merle drops a stack of cutting boards on top of the alchemiter with just enough force to pop it open. A purple glowball pops out of the top.

A timer on the bottom of the alchemiter reads ‘4:13’.

‘4:12’

‘4:11’

 

>Taako: Contemplate prototyping options.

 

Oh, you already know what you’re going to prototype into the sprite.

You’ve always thought that your UNICORN PLUSHIES had sort of unimaginative names, but other than that they’re basically perfect in every way. You throw one of them into the kernelsprite. You’re pretty sure it was named GARY, because whoever named these (they came with name tags at the store) has no imagination. You captchalogue some more of the UNICORN PLUSHIES, but you don’t prototype them yet.

This is already, like, the best thing in existence, and you want to wait until the best possible moment to make it better.

 

>Taako: Get cruxite and pre-punched card.

 

You do that. That basically didn’t even need stating. You also go into the hallway where the totem lathe is.

The sprite follows you. That’s sort of all sprites ever do, at least until things really pop off, it seems.

 

>Taako: Make cruxite dowel.

 

You put the dowel thingie in the place that it’s supposed to go in and the card dealie in the slot that’s for card dealies. It makes a carved dowel.

 

>Taako: Advance to roof.

 

Your apartment is like, second from the top floor, which, the other ones don’t really have people in them so you totally think you should have gotten the penthouse. But that’s not really your jurisdiction probably.

You make your way up the stairs.

 

Hey actually, aren’t there a couple people we haven’t met yet? Like UU, what’s up with her?

That woman of mystery will have to wait for now. There’s a couple other people we’re going to meet first. Let’s start with CG.

 

>Several minutes in the past…

 

A strong sweet flips gal stands in her bedroom, having just decided to take a break from playing Fantasy League of Legends. Although this girl, as the strong half of team sweet flips, can kick almost anyone’s butt at almost any game, she has not yet acquired a copy of ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’, because it requires a physical copy to function. She certainly has a name, though you might be hard-pressed to get it out of her immediately. However, if you take a stab at it, maybe she’ll answer.

What will this strength-focused teammate’s name be?

 

>Enter name.

 

KILLIAN

 

Well, that is a reasonable name, and it got accepted, but I’m going to draw a line here-- we need at least something to be a last name, even if it’s not a definite one.

 

>Enter full name.

 

KILLIAN CRUSHBONE

 

It’ll do.

 

Your name is KILLIAN [CRUSHBONE]. As previously mentioned, you like video games, where you can KICK IN THE DOOR and SHOOT THINGS WITH A GIANT CROSSBOW without any repercussions. Aside from that, you also have a few other interests, such as DUCKS (which you have lots of PICTURES of, a CARVED WHETSTONE of, and promises of more DUCK PARAPHERNALIA on the way) and KEEPING ORDER-- if people cause too much trouble and put lives in danger, you would like to be their WORST KNIGHTMARE. You live in LITERALLY THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE because your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER SLASH NONSPECIFIC RELATION is weird like that and feels like he has some sort of responsibility. Your skill at video games is enough to cause some people to RAGE-QUIT, and you’re sort of okay with that.

What will you do?

 

>Killian: Equip crossbow.

 

You don’t have to tell yourself twice! It’s a really big crossbow, too, the sort that could totally deal some real damage if you ever had to fight things, which you never do.

Someone is pestering you-- wait, no, trolling, because it’s that douchebag again.

 

arachnidAdoration [AA] began pestering crossbowGoose [CG] at 9:14 AM.

 

AA: hællö hællö vælcöme tö zë big dæy

CG: You literally don’t have to do that.

CG: Also, didn’t i block you?

AA: bût ït ïs my typïng quïrk!!!

AA: ǎnd zǎt döësn’t mǎtter væry můch bëcæůse öf zë ǎdvǎnced tæchnölögy i öwn.

AA: ǎnywæy, tödæy ïs zë big dæy zat vë have ǎll bëën væiting for

AA: ǎnd i höpe ů hǎve ǎn ǎmæzing tïme of ït!

CG: Also, what sort of ‘big day’ are you talking about?

AA: zë big dæy være ů plæy zë big gæme, öf cöůrse!

CG: Which game? I play lots of games.

AA: i bëlïëve ït ïs cǎlled, ǎh, SGRŮB? ör SBŮRB, mæybë?

CG: Are you sure that is going to show up today?

AA: öf cöůrse!!! ïn fǎct ït shöůld bë ǎt ůr plæce ǎny mïnůte nöw!

CG: Sure. I don’t know how you get the information you do, but can you please just go away for now?

AA: ǎbsölůtely nöt

 

crossbowGoose [CG] has blocked arachnidAdoration [AA].

 

arachnidAdoration [AA] began pestering crossbowGoose [CG] at 9:16 AM.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] has blocked arachnidAdoration [AA].

 

>Killian: Look up more information on SBURB.

 

You already know quite a bit about SBURB, because you purchased a copy a while ago and also recently purchased a copy as a gift for a friend and fellow sweet flips-er’s birthday.

It was nominated as Game of the Year for reasons that you’re not sure about, because most of the reviews redirect to the Game Bro one, which is, quite frankly, utter garbage.

Its advertising campaign marketed it as ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’, a marketing strategy that confounded the presses as much as it confounded you. It was made by SkaiaNet, but the advertisements couldn’t be traced back to them over the internet and in fact seemed to just manifest in the internet fully formed, and their… unusual wording caused a small meme sensation which functioned as a good chunk of its advertising in and of itself.

Your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER SLASH NONSPECIFIC RELATION worked on this game, although really you can’t picture him having done anything except the music. He’s really good at music, though, so the game probably has hella jams.

You’re honestly not sure what the game does, and your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER isn’t telling you, because he says something about confidentiality agreements. You know it has a combat system that is out-of-this-world, and that’s honestly enough for you.

 

>Killian: Check mail.

 

If the game is on its way, then it should be… 

The mail airplane is going overhead. What even the heck. You still don’t know how arachnidAdoration gets their know-how, but… you’ve just received a package in the mail.

Unfortunately, it seems to have landed on the old RUIN in the middle of your island, so you’re going to need to go retrieve that from there.

 

>Killian: Get music device.

 

You retrieve your music device, which also has all the benefits of a phone. You’re not actually entirely sure what these are supposed to be called if they’re not brand-name. Maybe mp3 players? Anyway, you retrieve that and captchalogue it.

 

>Killian: Go downstairs.

 

You exit your room. The hallways are full of SHEET MUSIC and VIDEO GAME GUIDES, and there’s a really great painting of a DUCK on one wall.

Your house is just really tall for some reason, and you’re not sure why your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER decided on that architectural decision. It’s sort of like a tower?

There are teleportation pads, which you think he got from someone else. You use one of them to get from your room down to the bottom floor.

Ah crap, your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER is sitting around downstairs, writing some songs. He’s nice, and all, but it’s really depressing to interact with him too much. He seems pretty much panicked right now.

 

>Killian: Sneak past.

 

Stealth isn’t your thing. Stealth is someone else’s.

 

In fact, why don’t we do a smash cut to who that someone else is, right now?

 

>Meanwhile… 

 

A stealthy sweet flips girl stands in her bedroom, having just decided to take a break from carving a wooden duck. Although this girl, the stealthy half of team sweet flips, would love to play ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’, she received it as a gift, which isn’t quite here yet, and would want to play it with her friends. She certainly has a name, and maybe she’ll even tell you if you take a guess.

What will this stealth-focused teammate’s name be?

 

>Enter name.

 

CAREY FANGBATTLE

 

Sure.

 

Your name is CAREY FANGBATTLE. As previously mentioned, you like carving DUCKS, although you mostly do it as a present for Killian, and they frequently wind up having MULTIPLE BUTTS for some reason. You have a PET LIZARD. You also like VIDEO GAMES, in which you have a stealth build (obviously) as well as KEEPING ORDER-- you would face down people who put others in danger, equipped with your ROGUEISH DEMEANOR, if necessary. You live NEAR THE MIDDLE OF A CITY because your MOM is a cop, or something. You like SNEAKING PAST THINGS and are good at AVOIDING people.

What will you do?

 

>Carey: Equip daggers.

 

That’s an excellent idea! You don’t generally use your daggers, because there’s not really anything to use them on, but just having them makes you feel more sneaky.

Someone is pestering you-- wait, no, trolling; oh, nice, it’s her again.

 

ghostlyApplesauce [GA] began trolling camouflagedAzure [CA] at 3:14 PM.

 

GA: today’s th3 big day, I suppos3

CA: which big day?

GA: your big day, as w311 as th3 big day for basica11y 3v3ryon3!

CA: you’ll need to clarify that.

GA: th3, uh, th3 gam3? sgrub?

GA: or sburb?

CA: but the game hasn’t arrived yet!

GA: w311, th3n I hop3 it arriv3s soon3r rath3r than 1at3r.

GA: for your sak3 as w311 as cg’s and th3 r3st of your fri3nd group.

GA: a1so, I’m pr3tty sur3 it’s g3tting c1os3 to arriving,

GA: but it 1ooks 1ik3 th3r3 wi11 b3 som3 comp1ications b3for3 you can p1ay it.

GA: a1so, wh3r3’s your mai1box anyway?

CA: i have a p.o. box. i’m pretty sure we’ve already established this.

GA: hav3 you ch3ck3d your ‘p.o. box’ y3t today?

GA: b3caus3 you should d3finit31y ch3ck it within th3 n3xt 30 minut3s.

CA: do you think the game is there?

GA: it wi11 b3 by th3 tim3 you g3t th3r3!

GA: but b3 car3fu1. things g3t w3ird v3ry soon, and I think it’s ta’s fau1t to som3 d3gr33. not 3ntir31y, but sti11.

CA: alright, i’ll be careful!

CA: thanks for telling me!

GA: no prob13m! you h31p3d m3 in th3 past, and w3’r3 fri3nds!

CA: i still don’t know what you mean by that first bit, but yeah!

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering ghostlyApplesauce [GA].

 

>Carey: Look up status of P.O. box.

 

It’s a big of a walk to the P.O. box, so you want to make sure it’s actually going to be there. You trust ghostlyApplesauce, but there’s no way she knows everything, right? You still don’t know where she gets her information.

There should be a delivery to the P. O. box in five minutes, which is less time than it takes for you to walk there. Now you have to go there.

 

>Carey: Get tablet.

 

You retrieve your tablet, and captchalogue it.

 

>Carey: Go downstairs.

 

You exit your room. The hallways are full of RACING MEMORABILIA and CARVING ATTEMPTS, and there’s a cool VIDEO GAME POSTER on one wall.

Your house is fairly small, and it’s a townhouse so it’s wedged between two other houses. The skyscrapers nearby tower over it. You’re not entirely sure why your MOM chose to live here, but it’s nice.

Your MOM isn’t home right now, but it seems like she parked her LEAN MEAN RAM CAR MACHINE very close to the door and took the bus to work, so the door can’t open the whole way right now. She left a note on the table that she’d be back from work early today, so she should be here soon.

You leave a note right back that you’re going to go get the mail. Now time to get through the door.

 

>Carey: Shove open.

 

Strength isn’t your thing. Strength is someone else’s.

 

But we’ve already met Killian, so why don’t we do a smash cut back to Carey’s other strong friend, as well as back to the present?

 

>Magnus: Keep stabbing imps.

 

Taako’s left the computer, so there’s not going to be any HOME IMPROVEMENT for a while, but you still keep up the tower defense, wherein the tower is your house at approximately double the size it was half an hour ago.

You’re currently standing on the roof, as in the highest point of the building. It’s slightly sloped but still functional as a standing point.

Someone is pestering-- someone is trolling you. It’s TG, again.

 

tongsandGavel [TG] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

TG: Hey, move abou+ a me+re +o +he lef+.

CC: huh?

TG: Do |+ r|gh+ now!

 

You move to the left, and as you do that a gigantic hand reaches over the side of the roof and slams into the ground where you were seconds ago.

It sort of looks like the hand of a clay imp, but obviously much bigger, more muscular, and meatier. You back the heck up as a second hand, this one the other hand, makes contact with the roof next to the first hand.

 

CC: what’s that?

TG: An ogre. | +h|nk your land m|gh+ have gran|+e ogres, bu+ |’m no+ en+|rely sure.

TG: +here’s ano+her one on i+s way.

CC: well, could you give me evasive maneuver advice?

CC: i’m sort of on my own right now, and don’t have a friend to drop rocks on them, so that would be appreciated.

TG: Here’s my evas|ve maneuver adv|ce, based on sk|mm|ng +hrough your s|+ua+|on. +hese +h|ngs have +he advan+age of numbers and weapon power, and +oge+her +hey seem very capable of k|ck|ng your ass.

CC: so, divide and conquer?

TG: You’re on +he roof, where would you d|v|de +hem +o?

TG: Look|ng a+ +he nex+ few m|nu+es, | would, |f |t were a prac+|cal sys+em and no+ one based on +|me paradoxes, sugges+ r

TG: Heads up!

 

You make your way to the center of the roof and recaptchalogue your laptop as the second ogre pulls its way onto your roof. The ogres big tusks and little tiny eyes, and they’re significantly taller than you. They seem to have divided responsibility of the prototyping effects, inasmuch as one has wooden bear ears and a very concave face while the other seems to have gills and fins. The one that resembles the bear is holding the rotating saw that you have in your backyard, which, shit, that’s probably not the sort of weapon you want coming in your direction, crap; the one that resembles your fish is holding one of your DAD’s contraptions, which in this case is a catapult. It doesn’t seem to have any ammunition, so at least there’s one good thing about this.

You get out your CRAPPY AXE. It’s not really the best axe, if we’re being honest here. Especially not against a table saw. Maybe there’s some way to get a better axe.

That’s going to have to wait. You charge the one with the saw, since if you can kick its butt quickly, that’ll take the table saw out of the equation, which is generally a good combat tactic.

 

>Magnus: STRIFE!

 

You AGGRESS the one with the saw in the thigh, and it starts the saw spinning, which is less spinny than usual because its power cord has just been totally severed, and takes out a chunk of one of the six chimneys with a missed swing. You don’t want to get hit with that.

You do a running jump and try to climb the saw one. The one with the catapult swings the catapult’s little lever, the part that actually fire things, at you, and that’s going to bruise along your entire side but it did also hit the other ogre in the stomach a bit.

You slam your axe into the arm of the saw ogre, and the saw drops to the ground and slides off the roof. That’s a relief.

The other ogre swings the entire catapult at you by the launching arm this time, and you barely have time to duck as the other one’s arm takes a good chunk of the damage.

Both you and the ogre that had the saw previously go flying backwards off the edge of the roof. You land on your windowsill, and are sort of barely still on your house, and that mostly because the window was smashed when your door flew through it at high speeds before you even wound up on LOHAR. Remember that? That didn’t stop being a thing that happened to your window. You’re pretty sure the ogre lands on the saw, but you can’t tell because you immediately go unconscious.

 

>Magnus: Wake up.

 

There is a dramatic cut across from you asleep in your window to also you asleep, but in like very fancy yellow pajamas and somewhere else entirely. A sort of spherical room that looks a lot like your room, but with very golden undertones in the walls and also writing on the walls.

Awake Magnus is asleep right now! Would you like to extend that invitation to Dream Magnus instead?

 

>Dream Magnus: Wake up.

 

You wake up. What happened in the last few minutes has a dream-like quality to it, but you still know that something’s off somewhere and that things are happening at this very moment.

This has happened a couple times before, but not always. Just often enough that you have some idea what’s going on.

 

>Dream Magnus: Look out window.

 

You’re in a very tall tower-like building overlooking a golden city. This is absolutely normal.

There are two more towers nearby. You know that at least one of the residents of those two towers is still asleep, unless something has happened while you were busy being asleep slash awake.

Directly above you is the bright blue mass of Skaia, streaked with white clouds. Right now, one of them is showing a house with an ogre on the roof.

Oh yeah, LOHAR’s probably somewhere out there right now. If you think about the situation too deeply it could get very weird.

Welcome to Prospit!

 

>Dream Magnus: How will you get down?

 

Don’t worry about it! You can fly! Dream logic is pretty amazing.

 

>Dream Magnus: Check on friends.

 

You just sort of fly out the window, because that works. Merle’s dreamself is still asleep right now, but you could swear that he wakes up when you’re not there and does whatever he normally does.

Carey’s dreamself, on the other hand, probably hasn’t woken up at all yet. Right now she looks restless and slightly panicky.

If you squint off into the dark space away from Skaia, you can sort of see a reddish-brown sphere that’s probably LOHAR.

If you really squint, and you know this for sure because you’ve tried this, you can almost see a purplish dot or sometimes even two of them, and that’s Derse. You haven’t been there yet, because this hasn’t been going on for long enough, but you know the rest of your friends are there.

You think maybe UU’s penpal might have helped her to wake up on Derse, but you’re not sure. Anyway, there’s no time to make the really long trek to Derse to find out.

It’s going to be the eclipse any minute, which you’ve gathered to mean that Prospit’s moon, the part of Prospit that you’re on, is going to pass through the outermost layer of Skaia. The clouds of Skaia show visions of the future and stuff, so if you go through the clouds then the visions apparently go everywhere or something? Either way, it’s best to stay in your room during that bit because it might get wild.

 

>Magnus: Return to room.

 

You return to your room, and lean eagerly out the window to wait for the eclipse. The clouds you can see right now show things like each member of your friend group fighting imps and a gigantic log toppling over. There’s a cloud that just shows Skaia in it, and the only cloud on the image of Skaia that you can make out the details of shows Skaia again; it’s sort of silly. There’s one that shows you unconscious on LOHAR, which, right, that’s still a thing that’s happening; hopefully that other ogre stays on the roof for at least a minute. There’s one that shows a meteor crashing into a lockbox and then it goes dark.

There’s one that shows Killian in a living room, looking at her BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER, who stops scrawling something across a page and looks up at her.

 

>Killian: Receive depressing interaction.

 

Your BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER immediately starts quietly rambling about something that you assume he was trying to convey in his music. You hear something about death and ultimate irrelevance, and really you’ve had enough of this conversation topic a long time ago.

You give him the heads-up that you’re going to be retrieving a package that landed on the RUIN. He doesn’t seem to care much, but he says that if it’s the game then it’s sort of important to continue the cycle. You tell him screw the cycle and leave the room.

 

>Killian: Go outside.

 

You do that.

 

> ===>

 

Your house is on an island, which is pretty sweet you guess except it’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s a big mountain over to one side of the island which might be a volcano but you sort of hope it isn’t. There’s also a big ruin in a lake in the middle of the island, close to the base of the mountain, which sort of looks like a jellyfish? It’s weird. You actually get the weird impression that whoever made the ruin was used to making something other than jellyfish and maybe had to switch to making a jellyfish partway through. You think there might be a cave system under there; that’d be sweet, but there’s no evidence to support it. There aren’t a lot of trees, but they grow like a big wall around everything, or maybe that’s just how you’re feeling sometimes. You would say some deep stuff about this all, but you’d prefer to just blow this popsicle stand and get to the game.

 

>Killian: Make way to ruins.

 

You make your way to the edge of the pond. The parcel is sitting on top of the jellyfish’s bell, its parachute on top of it. Getting up to the jellyfish’s bell is a bit harder than getting to any other part of the ruin, but it’s doable. You put a grappling hook onto your crossbow. That’s another advantage to a giant crossbow: it can come with grappling hooks. You line the grappling hook up with one of the tentacles hanging off the jellyfish’s bell and fire it. It hooks on.

 

>Killian: Grappling hook your way to the ruins.

 

You do a cool grappling hook kick-flip and pull yourself up to right at the edge of the platform of the ruins, and then slide off the statue’s tendril and onto solid rock. It’s notably cooler inside the ruins than it is outside of them.

Just climbing onto the bell as-is is sort of ridiculous, even though it’s not exactly smooth, because it’s shaped like a jellyfish bell, which is to say, not very climbably. There’s a back way up to it, though, which is spectacular. You just have to go down the ruin’s hallways first.

 

>Killian: Go down ruin hallways.

 

You make your way down the hallways of the ruin. There are carvings on the walls that depict various creatures: a large percentage of REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS, but also a few BIRDS and CNIDARIANS (JELLYFISH). They don’t look… artistic, they look more like someone decided that all of their letters would be pictures of critters and then wrote the entire manuscript of several books. Apparently, this place has some connection to the game, although you’re really not sure how true that is.

You pass a TIME CAPSULE-LOOKING PLANT THING, which has been counting down for as long as you can remember but is starting to get to lower numbers, and an ELEVATOR SHAFT.

That’s right, mfers, there’s an elevator in here. That’s a thing in like the actual original text, and so of course it’s going to continue to be a thing forever, because it’s an ELEVATOR.

You continue through the ruins and come to the staircase at the back that is woven around one of the thicker tentacles. This leads up to the bell, so you’re very careful while standing on it and on the bell.

 

>Killian: Retrieve game.

 

You captchalogue both game discs from the top of the bell and make your way to the staircase and back into the ruin proper.

 

>Killian: Exit ruin.

 

As you’re on your way out and passing the elevator shaft, something maybe crashes into the ruin with a loud noise and the entire building rocks. Your crossbow falls into the elevator shaft, and you slide off the edge and are now holding on in a truly awkward manner.

This isn’t going to last for too long, probably.

 

>Killian: Use grappling hook to descend carefully.

 

Your crossbow is at the bottom of the shaft, on top of the elevator pad which is also at the bottom of the shaft, but you still have a couple spare grappling hooks in case the first one is damaged. You loop one of them down the back of your shirt awkwardly, so that you don’t have to hold the string, and throw the hook at the time capsule. It makes a connection, which is great because you’re immediately sliding down the elevator shaft. You grab onto the rope with both hands so that it doesn’t slide out of your shirt and screw you over, but the rope isn’t quite long enough to reach the bottom of the shaft so you wind up abruptly jarred into dangling a few metres from the bottom.

 

>Killian: Drop down to bottom.

 

You’re bouncy enough, and anyway you need your crossbow, so you drop that last few metres.

You captchalogue your crossbow again.

Excellent. Where’s the control panel for this thing?

 

But hey, you’re not the only one in a difficult situation by now.

 

>Carey: Open window.

 

That’s much more your style. You pop open the window with ease and gracefulness.

 

>Carey: Go outside.

 

You do that.

 

> ===>

 

Your house is just one in a row of townhouses, all of them basically identical with their wooden-looking siding except for that yours has the LEAN MEAN RAM CAR MACHINE in front of it. Skyscrapers tower overhead, subway tunnels likely burrow underneath, and there’s a steady mix of wide thoroughfares and vaguely shady alleyways scattered throughout the city. You say some somewhat deep stuff about the alleyways and other cool things in the city. It’s not really that deep, but like, it’s something.

 

>Carey: Make way to post office box.

 

There are lots of streets you go down to get to the p.o. box, but not too many, and before long you’re at the post office. It’s a nice post office, with very cool architecture; it’s vaguely gazebo-esque, like a very overdone gazebo with a bit of a higher percentage of walls. Your p.o. box is on the second floor.

 

>Carey: Enter post office box place and ascend to second floor.

 

You make your way into the post office. There are p.o. boxes all over the walls, neat and orderly and all that. It’s basically just a regular place to have p.o. boxes.

There isn’t an elevator in here because it’s fairly small, but there is a staircase up to the second floor. You take the staircase and find your p.o. box. 

 

>Carey: Retrieve game.

 

You open your p.o. box. The game discs are there, along with a letter from Killian! You captchalogue both of them and close the box.

 

>Carey: Exit p.o..

 

As you’re on your way to the stairs and start to go down, there’s a loud crash and something smashes into the building. You dodge out of the way with a pretty sweet flip and the staircase next to you, as well as a good chunk of the entire building, gets crunched in a major way.

This building is going to collapse soon, probably.

 

>Carey: Do the sweetest flips of your life.

 

You dash at the wall and do some awesome flips at the door. They’re not the most amazing ones you’ve ever done, but they’re pretty nice. Unfortunately, a chunk of roof comes down on the door before you can get through it. You successfully do a flip off of it and avoid getting hit by any debris, but now you’re stuck in the half of the post office that isn’t destroyed. There’s rubble all over the place, and finding a route out might be difficult.

 

Seriously, everyone’s in a bit of trouble right now.

 

>Merle: Quickly check meteor status.

 

Several of the dots are red now, more than last time you checked. The one over Taako’s house is a very intense orange. In the corner of the screen, the time reads ‘10:25 AM’, and there’s well under a minute before Taako needs to enter.

 

>Taako: Get cruxite artifact.

 

The meteor looms large in the sky. It’s very on fire.

You place the cruxite dowel on the little pad and it creates a small… pastry-looking thing made of cruxite. You grab it immediately.

 

>Taako: Prototype sprite x2.

 

You grab one of your UNICORN PLUSHIES. This one came with the name DARYL, and you are going to make its day so much better.

You turn to face the dark purple kernelsprite, which already has one UNICORN PLUSHIE in it, and lob in the payload. For just a second, the rooftop is filled with light.

You’re ready to go.

 

>[Would be S] Taako: Enter.

 

(Picture this part set to a mashup of Upward Movement (Dave Owns) from the Homestuck soundtrack and Legion/A Pile of Ghosts from the TAZ soundtrack.)

 

Taako stands on the roof, looking up at the meteor, holding the cruxite pastry. Behind him, GARYLSPRITE is there and looking very cool. The timer pops up at the top of the image, and right now it reads “00:11”.

“00:10”.

The image zooms out quickly and zooms out of one of Skaia’s clouds. We see Magnus’s dreamself leaning out of his window on Prospit as the edge of a cloud slowly zeroes in on the tower he is in. The cloud starts to display a scene and then the entire scene changes to the scene in the cloud.

We see Magnus in red pyjamas that sort of look like a dress, in some sort of cave or fighting dojo, it’s hard to tell, slowly looking up at something we can’t see on the screen. He looks impressed; he looks like he thinks it’s really cool.

The scene in the cloud changes.

We see Merle’s shed basement and a meteor colliding into it, and then the image is immediately blotted out with light. The scene in the cloud changes again, showing a gigantic jellyfish full of stars. We see Magnus’s DAD, Taako’s AUNT, Killian’s BABYSITTER SLASH OLDER BROTHER, Carey’s MOM, and UU’s COUSIN very briefly. We see scenes of each party member fighting various imps and similar monsters.

We see, in the past, UU receiving a message from someone she doesn’t yet recognise.

The image in the cloud changes to just an image of Skaia, and the image in the cloud in the image in the cloud depicts a thick, stringy column of something dark and colourful.

We zoom out of the cloud that’s showing basically itself and into one of the smaller clouds next, and we see Killian, in approximately the present, pull out her music device as someone starts pestering, or rather trolling, her. She looks around and finds the elevator control panel and the elevator starts lifting up. As it does, she grabs onto the grappling hook string that is still dangling down from where it was before, and it pulls whatever it’s grappled onto down to Killian.

We zoom out of that cloud and into a different one, where we see Carey also receive a message on her tablet. She starts following the directions the message’s sender is giving her, and carefully climbs out of the severely damaged p.o. box place.

We zoom into a cloud that has a somewhat iffy view of its images, like they’re not entirely crisp. The cloud shows a rapid slideshow of computer screens, many of them with something that looks a lot like SBURB open on them, as well as clients of a program called ‘Trollian’. We see, very briefly, all of the usernames we’ve seen so far and one we haven’t seen, which reads ‘augmentedCotton’. We see, even more blurrily, the bottom half of someone’s silhouette stepping down a cave tunnel, a staff tapping on the ground as they walk. In a state so blurry that we can’t see anything that’s going on, we see a yellow blob and a tiny blue blur that it might be holding move across the surface of the cloud very quickly, followed by the cloud blacking out entirely.

We zoom out so we can see the entirety of Skaia and Prospit again, and then zoom back into the first cloud. Taako is staring down the meteor that’s on its way, holding the pastry up like he’s considering whether it would taste good or not. The meteor is very close. The timer reads “00:03”.

We pan up to a more direct view of the meteor again as the timer reads “00:02” and “00:01”. Taako’s apartment is swallowed up by a deep purple light as the timer reaches “00:00”.

Once again, the cutscene ends with a bright red curtain swinging closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT BECAUSE I APPARENTLY CAN'T BE SATISFIED YET: Happy Belated 11/11, aka the One Day in all of November where I couldn't be at home!
> 
> hmu on tumblr @aquelondungeonmaster for approximately no content and/or to validate this content. Or to give me characterization suggestions, because that isn't really my strong suit.
> 
> Next chapter is going to be Wild, you guys. Buckle up your fantasy seatbelts, etc., etc.


	3. Act II Act II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As our heroes prepare to enter the game, a discovery is made that utterly changes the situation. Magnus makes some friends. Taako looks for some oats. Merle gets thoroughly trolled. Killian gets gaming. Carey helps a friend cheat the system. Lup avoids causing an explosion.

>Act II Act II

 

Whoa what? Elevators and now act acts, you heard me guys. This is just like the greatest hits of all of these things. Now strap on your fantasy troll seatbelts and brace your asses, because this shit’s gonna get more real than kraft gogurt.

Is that even a thing? Who cares.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CT: sup, i’m back

CT: and also in the medium i guess.

CT: you there?

CT: imma use sburb to check your whereabouts

CT: there’s some big brute on the roof by the way, says it’s a granite ogre

CT: well, fuck, there you are

CT: uh you don’t look dead

CT: have a nice nap, m’dude, i guess?

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

Your sprite looks really cool-- it’s a binicorn with two shimmering rainbow horns and you are just over the moon at how awesome it is.

 

GARYLSPRITE: hey dude you got any ooooats?

TAAKO: i’ll see what i can do, m’guy

GARYLSPRITE: thank you, dude

 

>Taako: Look around.

 

The rest of the apartment building is mostly gone, leaving your house weirdly balanced on a semi-smooth crystalline surface. This pink crystal pond, for lack of a better word, extends out for quite some distance and then there’s like trees except made of candy canes. They look like they’re actual, living trees, too. You can see some plants that might be mint growing on a tiny island in the pink semi-smoothness. Overall, it’s very still, but not to an eerie degree, and very colourful.

 

LAND OF PEPPERMINT AND CRYSTAL

 

The seven of what you assume are gates trace their way up to the beautiful blue of what you’re pretty sure is Skaia. As you watch, a small-looking golden ball that you can just squint enough to see emerges from a cloud on Skaia’s surface. You don’t know what that signifies, but it signifies it.

 

>Dream Magnus: Reflect on eclipse.

 

That was really cool, even though you’re not sure what some of it meant.

Oh! If you squint out at the void, you can see that there’s a new blob, which probably means a new planet! It’s mostly pink and a few other pastel tones.

That can probably only mean one thing: Taako’s here! Which, like, you could maybe fly all the way over to that planet… or you could save time and take a nap and pester him when you wake up.

 

>Dream Magnus: Take a nap.

 

You flop over on your bed and try to catch some z’s, but uh, it’s slightly harder than it looks, especially when you’re trying to get to sleep so you can wake up from a window-induced unconsciousness slash hopefully not concussion.

 

>Awake Magnus: Wake up.

 

That certainly is a sentence that actually makes sense, so you do that.

Your entire body hurts a bit, and you’re probably going to have some major bruises within a few hours. Also, it sounds like the remaining ogre is still on the roof. You slip back through the window and start pestering Taako.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: so you’re here now?

CT: yeah

CT: dude holy crap what happened

CT: you were ko’d on your window for a while there?

CC: yeah, there were these ogres.

CT: still is one on your roof, i think

CC: i figured as much.

CC: how’s your planet?

CT: very… pastel, it’s the shit, dude

CT: think it’s called LOPAC, garyl mentioned that

CC: mine’s LOHAR.

CC: who’s garyl?

CT: my sprite, and basically the coolest thing to ever exist

CT: he’s a quasi-real spritely phantom binicorn

CC: cool!

CC: anyway, i’m going to try to fight that ogre again.

CT: it basically kicked your ass last time, right? should you maybe do something about that?

CC: great idea!

CC: gimme a minute, i’ll think of something.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

 

You’re not sure how you could defeat that ogre, unless you just keep trying. But like, based on how bruised you feel, that’s probably a bad plan.

 

You’re just about to decide, screw it, and just try that bad plan, when you think about TG again. Maybe TG has some sort of less bad plan.

 

>Magnus: Pester troll.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering tongsandGavel [TG] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: do you have any other ideas on how i can defeat that ogre?

CC: i’m in my room right now and i think it’s still on the roof.

TG: | can see +ha+.

TG: And |’m no+ en+|rely sure, um, | could look |+ up bu+ +ha+ would be vaguely we|rd.

CC: well, maybe if i had a better weapon i could hit it better.

TG: +hen +ry ge++|ng a be++er weapon!

CC: uh, i just have this axe; i’m not nearly strong enough to lift a table saw.

TG: You have all +he alchemy equ|pmen+, r|gh+?

CC: yeah, but i don’t see how that could do anything?

TG: You can make a be++er weapon wi+h +he alchemy equ|pmen+.

CC: if you have the code for it, right, which i don’t.

TG: |f you double-punch a cap+cha card or s+ack +wo punched cards on +op of each o+her and run +hem +hrough +he +o+em la+he, |+ crea+es new |+ems.

CC: whoa, cool! i’ll do that.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering tongsandGavel [TG].

 

You have enough captcha cards to not have to worry about punching through captcha cards, which is excellent and also because of this alchemy dealie.

This place isn’t very organised, but you should be able to make do, although it might take a bit of time to get all the things done. Of course, the clock on your computer has been reading ??:?? ?M ever since you entered the medium, so hypothetically it doesn’t matter.

You don’t even know how your clock could do that.

 

>Magnus: Combine axe && wooden duck.

 

You make another axe. It says this one is called Railsplitter, and it’s got a little button on it, and it looks like a woodcutter’s axe but really cool.

 

>Magnus: Combine axe || wooden duck.

 

You put two cards in the puncher rather than double punching a card and create a carved duck with an axe beak. It does not look as cool as Railsplitter, but it’s still pretty cool.

 

>Magnus: Combine pants && axe.

 

An axe wrapped in pants appears on the alchemiter. You try to take the pants off the axe, but they’re stuck firmly to the axe. It doesn’t even seem to be sharp.

 

>Magnus: Combine pants || axe.

 

This inexplicably creates cargo shorts, which look amazing.

 

>Magnus: Combine wooden dog && cargo shorts.

 

You’re trying to give the dog life by giving it pants so that you can have a dog, but instead you just create a wooden dog with carved shorts.

 

>Magnus: Combine wooden dog || cargo shorts.

 

You create wooden shorts. These are utterly useless.

 

>Magnus: Combine axe && cannon blueprint.

 

You create an explosive axe. Cool and good. Definitely not about to blow up in your face.

 

>Magnus: Combine cargo shorts && cannon blueprint.

 

You create a short cannon. It’s like a regular cannon, but the barrel is probably too short to fit a cannonball. Unless they have short cannonballs-- you’ll need to ask your DAD about that.

When you find him again, since he doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the house.

 

>Magnus: Combine cargo shorts || cannon blueprint.

 

You create a painting of a horse fighting a football player. Well, they can’t all be winners. Or reasonable items to create via alchemy.

 

>Magnus: Combine shoes && cannon blueprint.

 

You create cannon shoes. They each have a small cannon on the bottom that lets you jump really good. You try it out and immediately fall flat on your face.

Maybe not the safest shoes. There’s gotta be a safer design.

 

>Magnus: Combine shoes || cannon blueprint.

 

You create a shoe that fires cannonballs. It’s a really awesome item except for that you can’t actually use cannons well because you don’t have ‘cannonkind’ in your strife specibus.

 

>Magnus: Combine umbrella && wooden duck.

 

You create a wooden shield. You’re not sure how you’re going to use it, because again, strife specibus, but damn if you’re not about to use it anyway.

 

>Magnus: Combine umbrella || axe duck.

 

You create a serrated wooden umbrella. This is utterly useless to you, but wait.

Didn’t UU specifically mention an umbrellakind specibus that she owns? Maybe you could send it to her.

 

What is UU up to, anyway? We’ve spent too long so far without finding out.

 

>Meanwhile… 

 

A flame babe stands in her bedroom. It just so happens that today is the day that this young flame babe and her pen-pal will both play separate versions of the same game, marketed as ‘the last game you’ll ever need to play’, alongside their respective friend groups. Although this flame babe certainly has a name, we don’t know it at this point in the story.

What will the name of this flame babe be?

 

>Enter name.

 

LUP

 

Now whoa whoa whoa, I thought we established that people have to have last names. You can’t just-- it’s spoilers, huh? Spoilers?

Dammit, this is getting meta. This is going to just get really meta, isn’t it. Dammit.

Fine.

 

Your name is LUP. As previously mentioned, you and your PEN-PAL are both playing different versions of ‘THE LAST GAME YOU’LL EVER NEED TO PLAY’. You like COOKING and SETTING THINGS ON FIRE, between which there is a difference, however small. You’re good at CHANGING THINGS UP, although mostly in your case that means setting them on fire, and you can play the VIOLIN. You tend to put your HEART into your work, which just makes things even better.

 

>Lup: Check strife specibus.

 

You already have your RAD UMBRELLA in your strife specibus. You want to make a RADDER UMBRELLA, but you aren’t ready yet.

 

>Lup: Get phone.

 

You captchalogue your phone, which is very glamorous. About half the glitter in its case was a birthday present from Taako, and the other half (the red glitter) was yours.

 

>Lup: Check Pesterchum.

 

Your pen-pal has been ‘trolling’ you more frequently for weeks leading up to this day. He’s already booted up the game and entered the Medium, which means that he’s a bit ahead of you, but he’s still giving you frequent updates.

In fact, he’s doing that right now!

 

augmentedCotton [AC] began trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 3:58 PM.

 

AC: CC’s in and AA’s, uh, on his way &y now.

AC: I ran into some imps that were sort of ]acking my style, &ut, uh, that’s pro&a&ly my fault.

UU: great! well, ‘cept for the style-jacking imps.

UU: i think CT’s entered by now, and TA’s still not there yet.

UU: hopefully imma enter soon, babe.

AC: Yeah, here’s hoping nothing goes wrong.

UU: how’s your alchemy nerd stuff going?

AC: I might have to ad]ust some parameters, &ut I’ve started to get a system going.

UU: great! tell me if you find anything real cool.

AC: Alright. You should pro&a&ly, uh, start getting the game ready, though, so that your client player doesn’t have to spend too much time waiting.

UU: i’ll do that. see ya, babe.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering augmentedCotton [AC].

 

He really does do a lot of nerd stuff, but it’s weirdly almost cute.

You’d never tell him that, though.

 

>Lup: Get game.

 

You stashed the SBURB discs in the garage when you got them about 12 hours ago, but the garage is sort of dark and creepy and where your COUSIN keeps the work-in-progress versions of her EXTREMELY ILLEGAL DRAG RACING CAR, which means that it’s also very flammable due to all the gasoline and makes it very difficult for you to use your default version of illumination, which is to say flamethrowers.

You’ll go over there, you just have to figure out where you put the non-fiery methods of lighting things up.

 

>Lup: Get violin.

 

It can’t hurt to have a musical instrument, you guess. You captchalogue your violin.

 

>Lup: Go into hallway.

 

Your house is very small, and so it’s really cramped in the hallway. Especially when the hallway is filled with COOKING SUPPLIES, PROPERLY SECURED GASOLINE, and RAVEN FEATHERS.

 

>Lup: Look around for flashlights.

 

You poke around in your cupboards, but you can’t find any flashlights. Dang it.

 

Lup might be busy for several minutes. Let’s go check on someone else while she’s busy, shall we?

 

>Killian: Receive mysterious message.

 

Someone is trolling you. This isn’t someone who’s ever contacted you before, though.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling crossbowGoose [CG] at 9:37 AM.

 

GC: The control panel 1s to your r1ght.

CG: Who are you?

GC: A fr1endly d1rector on your m1ss1on. The elevator control panel 1s to your r1ght, sl1ghtly above that, and the button to make the elevator go up 1s the top one.

CG: ‘Kay, great, thanks.

GC: Once you get back to your house, you should boot up the game and connect w1th your fr1end TA 1mmed1ately. Also, get your g1rlfr1end CA to connect w1th you 1n return.

GC: Th1s 1s 1ncred1bly 1mportant.

CG: I’m pretty sure i never told you about CA, and anyway we’re not dating yet.

GC: The operat1ve word be1ng ‘yet’?

CG: … 

CG: Look, i literally just met you.

GC: Well, that’s fa1r. Your relat1onsh1p status 1s not 1mportant to th1s conversat1on. What 1s 1mportant 1s that you set up a connect1on cha1n ASAP.

 

The elevator is going up as you carry on this awkward conversation. You grab onto the grappling hook string that was hanging off the edge earlier, but instead of staying sturdy it pulls something over the edge of the elevator shaft.

 

>Killian: Catch it!

 

There are two things. There’s CD that reads ‘Gristtorent’ and a carved wooden duck. The duck looks very nice, and even has some small text carved into the bottom.

GC, whoever they are, is still messaging you.

 

GC: You’re go1ng to need to trust me on th1s and get play1ng, got 1t?

CG: Hold on, there was a duck in the time capsule or something.

GC: Oh, that th1ng. There’s such a story there, just a r1d1culous amount of b1zarre plot c1rcumstances surround1ng that duck’s feathery beh1nd and that d1sc’s sleek befront.

CG: It says ‘to killian’ on the bottom???

GC: B1zarre plot c1rcumstances. They come out of nowhere and b1te you 1n the rear. Don’t worry about 1t too much unt1l you look back on 1t later and real1ze “Oh, that’s why that happened”.

GC: Just, can 1 count on you to get gam1ng?

CG: Oh, you know it!

GC: Excellent.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling crossbowGoose [CG].

 

>Killian: Get gaming.

 

You captchalogue both items and make your way back from the ruins as quickly as you can. You don’t know who GC is, but they can count on you to get gaming.

 

>Carey: Receive mysterious message.

 

Whoever the person trolling you is, they’ve never contacted you before.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling camouflagedAzure [CA] at 3:37 PM.

 

GC: There’s a hole 1n the roof, and 1f you cl1mb up that knocked-over ma1lbox you can get pretty close to 1t.

CA: i don’t think we’ve met?

GC: We haven’t, from your perspect1ve. 1’m just a concerned party and a d1rector on your m1ss1on.

GC: Once you reach the top of the ma1lbox, you should be able to grab onto the hole 1n the roof and pull yourself up from there.

CA: um, thanks? i’ll do that, thank you for the advice.

 

>Carey: Do less intensive but equally sweet flips up mailbox and out roof.

 

You do some sweet flips and ascend to the highest point remaining in the building.

GC is still messaging you. In fact, you have some questions of your own for them.

 

GC: Once you get back to your house, you w1ll need to boot up the game and connect w1th your g1rlfr1end CG 1mmed1ately. Th1s 1s 1ncred1bly 1mportant.

CA: how’d you know about CG?

GC: Th1ngs l1ke your relat1onsh1p status or how 1 get my 1nformat1on are really not relevant to th1s conversat1on. What 1s 1mportant 1s that now 1s the t1me to set up a connect1on cha1n.

CA: that reminds me; do you know what happened to the p.o. boxes anyway?

GC: A good old-fash1oned meteor mash 1s what happened.

CA: meteor mash?

GC: Yes, a mash of meteors, where1n the meteors mash.

GC: Don’t worry about 1t too much. Just be adv1sed that you can avo1d the worst of 1t 1n the best way for you poss1ble: by play1ng a game w1th your fr1ends.

GC: Can 1 count on you to do that qu1ckly?

CA: alright!

GC: Perfect.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>Carey: Play that game.

 

You make your way back from the ruined post office boxes as quickly as you can. You don’t know who GC is, but they’re certainly right in that the best thing you can imagine doing right now is playing a game with your friends and not having to worry about meteors or collapsing buildings.

 

>Magnus: Finish alchemizing spree.

 

You finish alchemizing a bunch of stuff and captchalogue all of it. The axe RAILSPLITTER looks like it will be pretty useful, so you stuff it in your strife specibus.

Time to roll out and kick some butt, hopefully.

 

>Magnus: Ascend to the highest point in the building.

 

You do that. The ogre is still there, and it’s still holding the catapult. There’s now also a unicorn horn coming out of its forehead.

It notices you and starts approaching, already swinging the catapult.

 

>Magnus: STRIFE! (Round two.)

 

You do a big jump and bring RAILSPLITTER into the ogre’s stomach. It swings the catapult at you and bonks itself in the nose, but that’s also going to leave a big bruise on your back. You hit it with RAILSPLITTER again, narrowly dodge a full-on slam with the catapult, and catch it directly in the butt with the axe. It explodes in a shower of grist.

That was so much easier than last time.

 

>Magnus: Collect all the grist.

 

You do that quickly, including the grist that the other ogre left when it landed on its saw. You update Taako about your success.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CC: hey, i did it!

CT: great

CT: i’ve been figuring out how to blast the shit out of these imps

CT: it’s going aight

CC: did you know that you can double-punch a captcha card or run two captcha cards at once to make new things?

CT: nope, but cool

CT: i’ll do that

CC: also, can you make some sort of way for me to get to some of the other pillars?

CC: i made some rocket boots but i really don’t trust them.

CT: aight, leave it to taako

CC: great, thanks.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

 

>Taako: Build some bridges.

 

You copy and paste several parts of the house and make a somewhat mediocre but very stylised bridge to the nearest column. You also take this opportunity to make the house somewhat taller. It’s almost up to the first little burgundy circle by now.

Merle should be working on building your house up, but he hasn’t gotten to it yet, it seems.

 

>Magnus: Cross some bridges.

 

You make your way across the extremely weird bridge Taako has made for you. Most of the other columns are attached by little rope bridges, and while some of them have more imps on them, others don’t, and instead have various vaguely western-reminiscent buildings perched sometimes precariously on their surfaces.

There are little creatures on these bridges, and they sort of look like bipedal duck people.

 

>Magnus: Say hi.

 

You introduce yourself to the duck people. They seem delighted to meet you, and you are equally delighted to meet them.

They tell you about some of the myths of this place. Apparently their stories say that they will come very close to their doom, but that the Sylph of Time will save them.

You ask who the Sylph of Time is, and the duck kid you’re talking to says that he’s not entirely sure. They tell you that, while some people think sylphs have a tendency to be female, this one apparently isn’t, but other than that the stories don’t really talk about the Sylph of Time’s specific identity.

They also tell you that these duck people and several similar kinds of creature are called consorts.

You spend quite a while getting to know all these duck consorts. Many of them like vegetables a lot, and they think they would like swimming if the water wasn’t down a ridiculously tall cliff and moving at a ridiculously fast speed. There’s lots of craftspeople and cowpokes among them, and basically this place is pretty cool. The kid who told you about the Sylph of Time hears about your DAD’s work on cannons and wants to learn how to fire one.

You ask if any of them have seen your DAD, and they can’t help you there. Other than that moment of disappointment, it’s a thoroughly fun time.

 

While you’re having fun, other people are getting down to business and getting gaming.

 

>Killian: Consult with Carey about mysterious message.

 

Securely back in your house, you pull up Pesterchum to pre-game with Carey.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 9:49 AM.

 

CG: Do you have the game?

CA: oh hey, killian!

CA: you bet i do!

CG: Great! Some really mysterious person said that i need to connect with TA over the game system and you need to connect with me.

CG: They were really insistent on it, too.

CA: someone like that contacted me as well! that checks out with what they told me.

CA: did their chumhandle happen to be ‘gatheringChronicles’?

CG: Yeah! Typed with a bunch of ones instead of ‘i’s?

CA: yeah! so should we get going?

CG: Get gaming? You better believe it, sweetheart!

CA: let’s go!

CA: erm, should you give TA the headsup so that you can connect with him?

CG: I’ll get right on that. BRB!

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>Merle: Check meteor status.

 

Many of the dots on this map are red by this point. There are three noticeable ones that are getting very close to landing, and two of them are close to your present location.

The third one is out in the middle of the ocean. But it’s slightly later than the other two, which are over your present location. In fact, one of those two is like less than a minute away.

Someone’s pestering you.

 

>Merle: Answer chum.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering truthAura [TA] at 10:49 AM.

 

CG: Preface to this pre-game: has someone with the handle ‘gatheringChronicles’ contacted you recently?

TA: No.

TA: Wait, actually, I think maybe, yeah. Yeah.

TA: A while ago?

TA: They said for me to get Taako to enter ASAP.

CG: Alright, great. ‘Cause they just contacted me and said that I need to connect with you over the game.

CG: You up for that?

TA: The game is, uh, how you avoid meteors, right?

CG: Yeah.

TA: I’m up for that.

CG: Great.

CG: Let’s get gaming, then.

 

Someone else is pestering you. Wait, uh, trolling.

 

>Merle: Answer troll.

 

chipsTonic [CT] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:49 AM.

 

CT: you found the thingg..

TA: Huh?

CT: you knowwww,, the thingg,, all glowyyyy..

CT: waitt

CT: wrong timeframmmme.

 

chipsTonic [CT] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

>Merle: Boot up SBURB.

 

You slide the second disc into the computer and it goes through a loading screen. Then it’s loaded.

You glance over at the other computer, the one that shows the meteor locations map, and-- HOLY CRAP, YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE RIGHT NOW!

The smaller of the two very close meteors, the one directly over your present location, is basically a couple seconds away.

 

>Merle: Exit room.

 

You back the heck up and get back to the shed.

 

TA: Hold on for a second, there’s a meteor coming in hot.

CG: Ah.

CG: Shit.

 

>Merle: Hunker.

 

You brace yourself and the meteor lands very close to you, but you’re alright.

The technology in the shed basement is not so alright, though.

 

CG: You alright? The SBURB server just went dead.

TA: I’m fine. I think the computer just got destroyed.

CG: Got it.

CG: See if you can salvage the disc or anything.

CG: Oh crap, if the disc is wrecked then we’re all in so much dog shit.

 

>Merle: Inspect wreckage for disc.

 

You start looking through the wreckage. Absolutely none of the screens are readable or even vaguely intact, and the disc slot is barely identifiable, but when you do find the disc it’s pretty much gone.

The meteor also smashed open the safe. There’s a bit of rubble lying on top of it, so you can’t see what was in it, but it’s been smashed open.

You can see the sky through a hole in the roof and it doesn’t look the same, at the moment; for a second it just looks pure black and filled with… eyes? You get a feeling that something is watching your.

Then it snaps back to normal like it was never different.

 

>Merle: Remove rubble.

 

You move the slab of rubble to reveal a purple, semi-solid sphere, about the size of a basketball. A handful of clouds drift across its surface, and as you watch one of them shows you an image that’s just black opal.

 

What is this?

 

Nine people are messaging you.

 

>Merle: Answer trolls.

 

carpeAstrum [CA] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

CA: 7A, you need to ge7 ou7 of 7here.

CA: You need to boo7 up SGRUB as soon as possible and ge7 in7o 7he Medium before any7hing no7ices 7ha7 7hing.

TA: Huh? Why?

CA: You’re in a lo7 of danger righ7 now, 7A. O7her 7hings wan7 7ha7 7hing as well.

CA: Just 7rus7 me and ge7 ou7 of 7here.

TA: I’ll see what I can do, fella, I guess.

CA: Grea7.

 

carpeAstrum [CA] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

GC: Th1s L1ght could be very useful, but r1ght now 1t’s a l1ab1l1ty.

TA: Yeah, CA just told me about the danger part.

GC: 1t can show you 1nformat1on that can’t be accessed any other way.

GC: Sources also state that 1t 1s 1ncred1bly powerful.

GC: 1 don’t th1nk 1 need to tell you what could happen 1f that fell 1nto the wrong hands.

GC: All 1n all, get go1ng on your game sess1on as soon as poss1ble.

TA: Makes sense.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

arachnidAdoration [AA] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

AA: öh nö!!!

AA: ït ïs thǎt thïng!

AA: ï dön’t ǎctůælly knöw whǎt thǎt thïng döës

AA: ït jůst ïs pröbæbly why wë’rë ïn sö můch tröůble rïght nöw.

TA: Yeah, your friends said something to that effect.

AA: ælrïght thæn, ïf ů’ve göt thïs thën ï wïll gö bůg sömeöne ælse!

 

arachnidAdoration [AA] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

ascendingTechnologies [AT] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

AT: That thi^g is r>ally i^t>r>sting, from a sci>ntific p>rsp>ctive.

AT: It is >qually i^t>r>sting from th> p>rsp>ctive that an >ldritch-looking som>thi^g-or-a^oth>r wa^ts it.

AT: But my fri>nds would^’t l>t m> try to sci>nc> it.

TA: Yeah, a lot of people have been telling me about it.

AT: I’m just sayi^g, w> do^’t u^d>rsta^d this thi^g, a^d th>y would^’t l>t m> do t>sts o^ it.

AT: GC was all “I’m th> dir>ctor of this missio^ a^d I do^’t trust you with it”, which, r>ally.

AT: A^yway, I’ll l>ave you to d>al with this thi^g; I’m goi^g to go t>ll GC about my sci>ntific abiliti>s a^d how it would d>fi^it>ly hav> b>>n saf>.

 

ascendingTechnologies [AT] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

augmentedCotton [AC] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

AC: Are you afraid?

TA: Not… not particularly?

AC: Uh

AC: That’s fair.

AC: &ut if you were afraid, it would &e ]ustified as well.

AC: This is not an item that destroys worlds, &ut it is pursued &y one.

AC: I mean, it is pursued &y something that destroys worlds. ]ust, uh, for clarification.

AC: The thing that pursues the Light you have found-- its want, its hunger… it’s pro&a&ly going to &e the end of us all.

AC: Like, we haven’t o&]ectively proved that, &ut uh,

AC: We’re not a&out to test it; uh, anyway,

AC: If it catches up to you, you’re in so much trou&le.

AC: Uh, this has &een your first lesson.

AC: &ye.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

championGuillotiner [CG] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

CG: I sti// don’t know w#at t#at t#ing is, but I don’t rea//y want to know.

CG: it’s bad, and t#at’s w#at’s important.

CG: but w#at I do want to know is, w#at’s it doing t#ere?

CG: #ow did it get t#ere?

TA: You’re asking the wrong person, fella.

CG: we//, t#at’s stupid.

CG: I guess t#e p/an wasn’t as foo/proof as t#ey t#oug#t it wou/d be.

TA: The plan?

CG: t#eir stupid p/an to so/ve a// t#e prob/ems.

CG: it worked, but now t#is #appened.

 

championGuillotiner [CG] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

corporealCorvid [CC] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

CC: Y0u unf0rtunate buf00n, y0u nasty bugger,

CC: That 0rb, the light, I d0n’t like it.

CC: It’s n0t bad, per se, it just FLIES IN THE FACE 0F EVERYTHING THE UNIVERSE SH0ULD BE.

CC: Except f0r the parts that y0u take resp0nsibility f0r pers0nally ruining.

CC: Y0u ass.

TA: Whoa, calm down.

CC: Y0u’re just generally atr0ci0us, and that thing is just as bad, innit.

CC: Hmph.

 

corporealCorvid [CC] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

ghostlyApplesauce [GA] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

GA: this is wh3r3 things g3t… w3ird.

GA: ar3 you going to n33d any h31p with your s3ssion?

GA: b3caus3 I’m pr3tty sur3 you cou1d us3 a11 th3 h31p you can g3t, but I don’t know how I cou1d h31p you.

GA: … 

TA: I think I’ve got this.

TA: Actually, probably not, but maybe it can be my first moment of real competence.

GA: y’a11 ar3 p13nty comp3t3nt!

GA: 3sp3cia11y cg and ca!

TA: Alright then. Do you have any very vocal but not very useful opinions about this thing like everyone else?

GA: it’s… r3a11y dang3rous?

GA: it’s why 3v3rything go3s downhi11 v3ry quick1y.

GA: at’s d3niz3n kn3w a 1itt13 bit about it, and gc’s d3niz3n kn3w a 1ot about it, but I don’t know much about it.

TA: Uh, thanks, I guess.

GA: no prob13m! I r3a11y 1ik3 h31ping p3op13!

GA: s33 you around, mayb3!

 

ghostlyApplesauce [GA] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

tongsandGavel [TG] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:52 AM.

 

TG: You’re no+ go|ng +o l|ke +he nex+ b|+s.

TG: | know +h|s because | don’+ l|ke +he nex+ b|+s.

TG: | jus+ f|gured | should g|ve you a heads-up, +o be fa|r.

TG: And also because you’re CC’s fr|end, and he would def|n|+ely wan+ me +o g|ve you a heads-up.

TA: Thanks, but your friends have also been giving me lots of warnings about this thing.

TG: Grea+. Here’s ano+her warn|ng: +h|s changes +he game dras+|cally.

TG: Be really careful w|+h |+.

 

tongsandGavel [TG] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

While you were being trolled by a large number of people, one of them contacted you again. Dammit.

 

>Merle: Answer troll (again, but only one this time).

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling truthAura [TA] at 10:59 AM.

 

GC: One of my fr1ends also had someth1ng to say about th1s, and he doesn’t have a Troll1an account, so 1’m lett1ng h1m borrow m1ne.

GC: The next few b1ts of text are h1m us1ng my account.

GC: They should be recogn1zable due to the1r lack of typ1ng qu1rks and d1fferent text colour.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] changed their text colour.

 

GC: Hey, so this is GC’s friend, and uh,

GC: I would like to apologize in advance.

GC: The Light is a good thing! It’s a good thing. But that certainly doesn’t change the circumstances you’re going to find yourself in.

GC: Ah jeez, some of the things that could happen… that’s bad. Sorry.

GC: But also, just a word of advice: The Light is a really good thing, and you’re going to need it very soon, so don’t throw it away.

GC: If you keep it safe, I’ll try to, uh,

GC: Dammit, can’t do that, uh,

GC: Keep it safe, and we’ll help you.

TA: Um… 

TA: Thanks?

GC: It’s more of a responsibility, both to the Light and to Heroes as a concept.

GC: I’m going to give GC back her computer now.

GC: Good luck; you’re going to need it.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] changed their text colour.

 

GC: You may want to get go1ng ASAP. Sh1t’s about to pop off l1ke a champagne bottle full of compressed gas.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

>Merle: Exit shed basement.

 

You emerge from the shed basement via the shed un-basement, and step out into your yard. Aside from the hole in the ground beside the shed, your yard looks pretty much normal, but something seems just a little bit not quite right.

Also, it sounds like your GRAMPS has left his study. You might have some explaining to do about the hole in the backyard, but maybe he’ll have some solution to your lack of a SBURB disc.

Speaking of which, Killian’s still been pestering you.

 

CG: You still there? Is the disc wrecked?

CG: If you up and died while trying to find the disc then that’s stupid.

TA: Yeah, the disc is destroyed.

CG: Oh great.

CG: Did it take you that long to find it?

TA: Nope.

TA: Found some mysterious purple ball, pretty much everyone had something to say about it.

TA: It was in the safe.

CG: Huh.

CG: How’re we going to get a new SBURB disc, though?

CG: Did you happen to get two?

TA: Nope.

TA: I didn’t actually purchase this one; it was in the shed basement.

TA: I’m going to ask my gramps if he has another one, though.

TA: Wish me luck.

CG: Sure.

 

truthAura [TA] ceased pestering crossbowGoose [CG].

 

>Merle: Go inside.

 

You go back into your house. As you expected, your GRAMPS is standing in the front room, looking concerned.

He’s not really old enough to be your grandfather, as you’ve already stated. He’s noticeably taller and buffer than you, but he gives off a vibe of someone who gained the height and musculature very rapidly and didn’t expect it.

Even though he’s like, way older than you, you still are pretty sure he’s more competent than you, and that is just not fair.

He’s wearing a fancy sweater vest, a silly fancy hat, and thick round glasses today, which is basically what he wears every day. He’s holding one of his BELOVED DETECTIVE NOVELS.

 

He asks you what happened, and you summarize the situation as briefly as possible and ask him if he has another SBURB client disc. He does not have another SBURB client disc. He’s a little bit panicked. You ask if he has a way to get a SBURB client disc. He says maybe alchemy, but that requires you to have already had a SBURB client disc. You tell him that this is not good and you need a SBURB client disc.

Something in one of your captcha cards starts humming faintly.

 

>Merle: Check captchalogue cards.

 

The weird ball that you got from the safe is what’s humming. You take it out and it seems to have created some sort of portal, about the size of maybe a CD. You can faintly see someone through it.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering truthAura [TA] at 11:01 AM.

 

CG: And just what exactly is this?

TA: Huh?

CG: That’s some sort of portal or something, and it sort of looks like your house through there.

TA: Oh, I guess the weird purple ball thing made a portal to your house? Weird.

CG: Yeah.

CG: Any chance of it making a SBURB disc for you?

TA: It doesn’t look like it.

TA: Gramps said that if I had a SBURB disc, I could use alchemy to get a SBURB disc, though.

CG: Well, i have a SBURB disc, so i could probably use alchemy to make another one and give it to you through this weird portal.

TA: Or you could give me your SBURB disc.

CG: I prefer this method. Lemme just get carey on this and then i’ll have your disc in no time.

TA: Alright, but make sure you do that.

CG: Got it.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

Time to get on that. But first, let’s get a status update from someone else.

 

>Lup: Get flashlight.

 

You retrieve the flashlight from the back of one of the cupboards. You click it on and then off, and determine that it’s properly illuminated.

 

>Lup: Go outside.

 

You do that.

 

> ===>

 

Your house is pretty small, squished between a few other houses and some alleyways. The rent is good and the neighbours don’t judge when your COUSIN gets arrested again, so there’s that. It’s just sort of small and nasty, and makes you want nicer things. Today it’s very warm out, and the sun reflects off the pavement with a glassy shine, and you’re in the mood for fire. You’re often in the mood for fire. You say some somewhat deep and probably quite great stuff about fire and also your COUSIN getting arrested for illegal fast car racing.

 

>Lup: Go into garage.

 

As you duck into the garage, you click on your flashlight. The light only shows a small circle, but it’s still enough to show the smooth sides of your COUSIN’s EXTREMELY ILLEGAL DRAG RACING CAR. You step around it very carefully and avoid all the GASOLINE. This place is like a powder keg of GASOLINE, even if it’s all properly secured.

You left the discs at the back of the room, in a garage cupboard. They are right where you left them.

 

>Lup: Get game.

 

You captchalogue the SBURB discs. You also captchalogue a CANISTER OF GASOLINE, just in case of emergencies. You probably won’t need it, but it could be useful.

Not everything has to be ridiculously difficult all the time, y’know? Just some of the time. Just most of the time.

 

>Killian: Check captcha code on client disc.

 

It looks like the captcha has been encoded. You can’t quite read it.

Some things do have to be ridiculously difficult all the time.

 

>Killian: Load up SBURB client.

 

You pop the server player disc out of your computer and put the client player disc in. The weird portal that the thing from Merle’s shed basement made is floating over to one side of the room.

The game goes through a loading screen fairly quickly, like even the game knows how important this is. Maybe it’s just your good computer.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 9:01 AM.

 

CG: There’s been a change of plans, because TA’s SBURB client disc is ruined.

CG: Apparently, we can make a new one with SBURB game mechanics, but you need to get all the stuff out real fast.

CA: no problem!

CG: Also, if there’s any way to decode super-encoded captcha codes, get it.

CA: okay.

 

>Carey: Put down all the important SBURB stuff real fast.

 

You start moving things around and put down the alchemiter, the totem lathe, and the cruxtruder in various locations. You have exactly enough grist to put down what might be the answer to this problem: the intellibeam laserstation. You had to increase the size of the rooms in a couple ways to fit everything in the immediate vicinity, and now you don’t have any grist remaining.

 

CG: Alright, i got the code for the disc.

CG: Um, where do i put it into for the alchemy?

CA: crap. i’m fresh out of grist; can you think of any way to get more?

CG: Cheat codes? I mean, that’s cheating, but this is an emergency.

CA: let me try some.

CA: uh it says that one can only be used once,

CA: i don’t really have any other ideas.

CG: Wait, i have an idea, maybe!

CG: There was this uh time capsule in the ruins, and there were a couple things in it, and one of them was a CD that says “GristTorrent” on it.

CA: well, if i had to guess, i would say that that might torrent the grist from somewhere, which would be great.

CA: there’s also one of those in this registry, so like, it’s probably system compatible.

CG: Yeah, i’ll try it.

 

>Killian: Torrent that grist.

 

You put the GristTorrent CD into your computer, and it pops up with an informative, colour-coded graphic vis a vis: everyone’s quantities of grist. Magnus (red text) has a lot; Taako (pink text) also has some; Merle (dark green text) and you (light green text) just have what came with the game (except you don’t have any right now); the other two ones are blank.

You set it to leech off a bunch of Magnus’s grist, of all types. It goes at a few per second, but pretty soon the stuff is trickling in.

 

>Carey: Place punch designix.

 

You put down the punch designix, which is one of the only remaining things in the phernalia registry that isn’t already in Killian’s room, along with some sort of holopad (sick), which you don’t put down. You do put the pre-punched card on her computer very carefully though.

Killian punches the code into the designix. She jumps on the cruxtruder to pop the lid off of it, and does an athletic flip off of it as a violet kernelsprite pops out of it.

 

CA: what’s the time on that thing, btw?

CG: 10:25 minutes and counting down.

CA: alright. the pre-punched card is on your computer.

CG: Great! Thanks!

 

>Killian: Make disc.

 

You collect the cruxite from the cruxtruder, combine it with the code at the totem lathe, and stick the cruxite totem into the alchemiter. Really all this stuff is very obvious based on the game design and very easy.

 

CG: Imma get TA into the game now. Love ya, babe!

CA: alright, you do that.

CA: thanks!

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>Killian: Give Merle client disc.

 

You stuff the disc through the portal and Merle catches it.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering truthAura [TA] at 9:03 AM.

 

CG: Now, let’s get gaming. Again.

TA: That sounds like a good idea.

 

>Merle: Get gaming (again).

 

You recaptchalogue the weird glowball, which the trolls alternately called ‘that thing’ or ‘the Light’. The portal it made closed once the CD came through it.

You hightail it upstairs before your GRAMPS can say anything about any of the events and stick the SBURB client disc in your computer. It runs through another loading screen process.

Killian immediately starts placing down things as soon as it’s loaded. The tube doohickey goes in place of some of your larger houseplants, which go flying out the window.

You were still using those!

Presumably, some of the other things go in the hallway and the main room. Killian’s modus operandi seems to be throwing things out of the way and placing down the necessary items. Another houseplant flies through the door to your bedroom, knocking it off its hinges, and smashes the top of the tube doohickey open. A turquoise glowy thing pops out.

A timer at the bottom turns on. It currently reads “6:12”.

“6:11”

“6:10”

A pre-punched card smacks you in the face.

 

TA: Stop that!

CG: Alright, i’ll refrain from messing up your house any more.

CG: But get gaming! There’s no time to waste.

TA: There’s six minutes to waste.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

>Merle: Make pre-punched item.

 

You go through the process of making the item on the pre-punched card: you get the stuff from the tube thing, you go out into the hallway and stick the stuff and the card into the spinny gadget. The cruxite artifact it creates is a leaf.

Your sylladex is too full to hold it, so when you captchalogue the leaf, the purple orb (the Light) pops out of your sylladex.

 

>Killian: Make pre-punched item.

 

This process is even faster than the process for the disc, because you don’t have to punch anything into the punch designix. You do it very quickly. It creates a cruxite artifact, and in this case it’s a brick.

 

>Merle: Prototype sprite.

 

You pick up one of the really nice houseplants and toss it into your sprite. The room fills with light for just a moment, and then the sprite slot is filled with plant matter.

The timer shows somewhat over four minutes until you have to enter, but certainly entering early can’t hurt. Can’t help, but can’t hurt.

 

>Killian: Prototype sprite.

 

You consider your options, and then take the duck that you got from the time capsule and stick it in the kernelsprite. The room fills with light for just a moment, and then the duck’s rough-carved image is visible in the kernelsprite.

The timer shows around six and a half minutes to go. Maybe you could enter early, but you think you’ll wait for a second. Merle seems like he’s doing well too.

 

>[Would be S] Merle: Enter.

 

(This scene should be set to a combination of Sburban Jungle from Homestuck and Final Form from The Adventure Zone. If you’re actually listening to these songs, please note that Final Form isn’t on Youtube by itself, but it’s in the album Journey’s End.)

 

We see Merle, and while he looks a bit nervous, he doesn’t look too nervous, because the meteor is barely even visible in the sky yet. PLANTSPRITE is in the vicinity, but not really doing much because it’s a houseplant. The timer reads “4:20”.

The Light is floating very close to Merle’s shoulder. Clouds are drifting across its surface very fast.

We zoom into one of the clouds on the surface of the Light. We see two silhouetted figures standing close together and holding something very bright. We see what looks like it could be a planet just explode. We see what looks like a jellyfish, glowing with stars, and we pan around to a bespectacled, gray-skinned face looking somewhat surprised.

We see columns of black opal, strings of it that stretch for miles. We see Lup and the same gray-skinned person from earlier, both leaning into computers, except for that now we can see that the grey-skinned person has horns that vaguely resemble antennae, but thicker. We see Magnus chatting with the duck consorts. We see Taako and Lup, back to back, surrounded by fire and blasting something. We see Carey grappling with something, but we don’t see what it is. We see Killian smashing a door open. We see Merle surrounded with plants, which uh, but it looks like a magic thing rather than like anything else.

We see the Light descending in a streak of purple through blackness, silhouetted against Skaia. With that comparison, it’s easy to see that the Light really does look like Skaia, but the size of a basketball rather than the size of a gas giant and with a purple surface rather than a blue one.

We see the sky, but pure black, with hundreds of pure white eyes visible in it.

We zoom out of the surface of the Light and back to Merle’s house. He’s tearing the leaf in half, and his house is surrounded by teal light. The timer pops up at the top of the screen, and now it reads “4:15”.

We pan up, away from his house as turquoise light surrounds it, up to the meteor far overhead. We still see a little box in one corner showing Merle’s face, and he still doesn’t look very nervous. “4:14”.

The next few things happen lightning-fast.

One moment the meteor’s there, and the next moment it’s just gone, with a string of black opal in its place, thick, stringy, curving and branching off. In the corner of the screen, we see that Merle’s looking up with some degree of alarm. The turquoise light swallows up his house and it disappears as the timer reaches “4:13”, and immediately after that happens, a thick branch of black opal smashes into the spot it was in.

The screen is filled with strings of black opal, and then a red curtain swings closed with a flourish.

There’s a pause, and then the curtains very slowly peel back open, but this time the black opal is no longer visible and instead we see Merle’s house in the Medium.

 

>Merle: So what was that?

 

truthAura [TA] began pestering crossbowGoose [CG] at ??:?? ?M.

 

TA: I’m in the medium now.

CG: Great.

TA: You should probably be careful though; there was like this black opal stuff?

CG: Got it. I’ll be right there, i guess.

CG: What’s the sitch on your end, btw?

TA: It’s pretty nice.

 

>Merle: Look around.

 

There are lots of plants around your house, and they have seemingly dug into the sand, which seems to be more everywhere. Your house is balanced on what might be a very large sandbar with lots of plants poking out of it, mostly vines and flowers. Below the sandbar, a shallow ocean stretches out fairly far, with more plant-covered sandbars poking up from its surface. Although the ocean is shallow enough that you could probably walk through it and not get your hat very wet, if you were wearing a hat, it has many aquatic plants growing in it.

 

LAND OF FOLIAGE AND SURF

 

Above your house, seven swirly circles in the sky stretch up to Skaia, which looks exactly like a larger, bluer version of the Light that’s still floating by your side.

 

TA: The weird purple ball that was in the shed basement safe looks a lot like Skaia, come to think of it.

CG: Weird.

CG: Hang on, someone’s pestering me, gtg.

CG: *trolling

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

>Killian: Answer troll.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] began trolling crossbowGoose [CG] at 9:07 AM.

 

GC: 1f you were plann1ng on wa1t1ng unt1l the t1mer reached 0:00 to enter, 1 do not adv1se that.

GC: My fr1end doesn’t adv1se that e1ther.

CG: Why not? Isn’t the timer there for a reason?

GC: 1t counts down unt1l the po1nt of 1mpact for the meteors that are sanct1f1ed by the game out of necess1ty, or 1f there’s no meteors 1n a g1ven sess1on, unt1l the game w1ll force entry.

GC: S1nce the game has not cons1dered the approach1ng threat 1n 1ts calculat1ons, 1f you wa1t for the t1mer to run down then you w1ll not l1ve to see 1t.

GC: Just trust me and get gam1ng.

CG: Approaching threat?

GC: There w1ll be t1me to expla1n once you’re 1n the Med1um. Suff1ce 1s to say, th1ngs have found the L1ght and now we’re low-key boned.

GC: Get gam1ng.

 

gatheringChronicles [GC] ceased trolling crossbowGoose [CG].

 

That’s not enough of an explanation, but you’re willing to listen to it.

 

>GC: Worry.

 

We can’t be gatheringChronicles yet, but we do see her silhouette. She has somewhat tall, almost staff-like horns, and she’s pacing back and forth in front of a computer screen. Oh, she knows it will turn out fine, but it’s still a lot of stress-- and what next?

She faces towards the computer screen and addresses someone that we can’t see.

 

[GC]: So… 

[GC]: Tell me more about th1s L1ght.

???: I can only tell you so much. But what would you like to know?

[GC]: What 1s the th1ng that wants 1t?

???: Ah,

 

>Killian: Give Carey the heads-up vis a vis: gaming.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 9:08 AM.

 

CG: I'm going to be entering the game now rather than later, because the mysterious troll said something about an approaching threat.

CA: alright, got it. good luck!

CG: Hell yeah.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>[Would be S] Killian: Enter.

 

(Picture this part set to a mixup of Final Form from The Adventure Zone (again) and Harleboss from Homestuck.)

Killian is standing in her room, which has been expanded by the SBURB mechanics noticeably. The DUCKSPRITE is floating behind her. It looks a bit concerned. Killian also looks somewhat concerned, but not very concerned. She's holding the cruxite brick.

We zoom out the window and pan across the ocean to Merle's previous location, which is to say to a massive wall of what looks like black opal, thick twisting columns and stringy, lightning-like offshoots of a dark substance flecked with reds, greens, blues, golds. It looks simultaneously like a bowling alley carpet and beautifully cosmic, and it's stretching across the ocean. As it touches the water, the water is sucked into its surface or evaporates.

The frame zips past it very quickly, giving just the impression of a large distance of black opal and also a fairly large distance without it. We see Carey leaning into her computer nervously, and then zoom over and see Lup taking the stairs two at a time and hurrying into her room.

We zoom out through a cloud in the Light, the purple thing that looks so much like Skaia, and see Merle struggling with an imp. He's trying to hit it with his hammer, but it's not going well. We zoom through another cloud in the Light, and we see someone trying to fly some sort of boat while black opal pretty much rains down on the surroundings. And we see the silhouette of what might be a canopy bed, falling.

We zoom into one of the clouds, and now we see Killian again. She looks out the window and on the horizon we see the wave of black opal approaching. We zip up and see a portal in the sky spit out a meteor, and then we see the meteor be immediately destroyed by a lance of black opal as the portal closes.

Killian spikes the cruxite brick on the ground and stomps on it. It pops like a soap bubble and bluish-violet glow floods out of it. The glow surrounds the ruins and basically the entire island, and we can see from the outside that the black opal is stretching just outside of the zone that’s going to be transported, up and over like a tidal wave, like a huge tsunami of writhing apocalypse.

Killian’s island vanishes into the Medium as the wave of black opal crashes down into where it was moments ago, and a red curtain swings closed over the scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just try to sync people's entry times up with the Homestuck Numbers and then the extra apocalypse appears and throws your plans out the window. And sometimes you forget to put notes in the chapter until you're ready to post the next one. 
> 
> HMU on tumblr @aquelondungeonmaster if you have any characterization suggestions or want to validate me.


	4. ACT III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still a bit shaken by the sudden extra apocalypse that descended on their planet, the crew hurries to get their remaining players to relative safety. Magnus protects the dear, sweet, precious duck consorts. Killian gets some direction. Carey STRIFES? Lup does some baseball shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apparently can't balance six characters. There's a grand total of 24 characters that I may have to balance. Dammit.

>Act III

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering gatheringChronicles [GC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CG: I’m in the Medium. Now you can tell me, what the hell was that?

GC: 1t’s some ent1ty; 1 don’t know what 1t 1s and my fr1end doesn’t want to talk about 1t, but 1t really wants the L1ght, and 1t essent1ally destroys everyth1ng 1t touches.

GC: My fr1end 1ns1sts that the L1ght is a good th1ng, and that 1t’s h1s respons1b1l1ty to keep the people who 1nteract w1th 1t, wh1ch 1s us, as safe as poss1ble. But he also says that, because of the th1ng that 1s hunt1ng 1t, 1t’s a very dangerous 1tem to have around.

CG: Great, cool.

CG: So what can i do about it?

GC: We’re really not sure.

GC: Make sure the L1ght stays safe. Get your fr1ends 1nto the Med1um before too much of that stuff gets anywhere near them.

GC: You m1ght be safe 1n the Med1um, but we’re not really sure because 1t d1d f1nd your world.

CG: Ugh. Alright.

CG: Wait-- ‘your world’?

GC: Yes.

CG: Explain.

GC: 1t’s a long story, and 1… w1ll have expla1ned 1t to you eventually.

CG: What?

GC: 1n general, 1f there’s someth1ng we1rd go1ng on you can usually blame we1rd t1me sh1t.

GC: W1th the except1on of we1rd th1ngs that can probably be p1nned on the L1ght.

CG: I don’t get it. Weird time shit?

GC: 1 w1ll tell you about 1t 1n your future.

GC: Meanwh1le, how’s your land?

 

>Killian: Look around.

 

Your house is perched on a somewhat narrow and not very tall concrete wall that’s just wide enough to accommodate it, inside some sort of depression or gradual crater. Similar walls extend across the environment, which is very still. On the ground (eg not on the wall), the mouths of several caves stretch open. Some of them are just slow slopes, while some of them descend almost directly down into deep chasms.

 

LAND OF CHASMS AND WALLS

 

Extending above your house are seven gates, which stretch up to Skaia. Skaia almost seems to be vibrating a little bit, and you’re not sure what’s up with that.

 

CG: It’s pretty cool.

CG: Uh, I’m not sure if Skaia’s 100% okay, though.

GC: 1t’ll be mostly f1ne. 1t’s just try1ng to consol1date the s1tuat1on and rega1n 1ts understand1ng of 1t all, 1 th1nk.

CG: Aren’t we all.

CG: I’m going to go look around now, but before i go, is there something i should call you other than your chumhandle?

CG: I’m Killian, by the way.

GC: You can call me the D1rector.

GC: And 1t’s a trolltag, not a chumhandle.

CG: That’s… not really a name.

GC: 1t was the name 1 thought someone 1 adm1red would have, but 1t turned out that person d1dn’t really ex1st.

GC: The we1rdest t1me sh1t.

CG: ???

GC: 1 w1ll make a po1nt to expla1n 1t to at least one of your fr1ends when the top1c comes up.

CG: Great.

CG: Well, mx. D1rector, i’m going to go look around and tell CA to get in the game soon.

GC: Excellent.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering gatheringChronicles [GC].

 

>Killian: Give Carey the heads-up about impending additional apocalypse.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CG: I’m in the Medium now. I talked to GC again and they said that you should get gaming really soon.

CA: huh?

CG: Something’s hunting the thing TA found in his shed, and it apparently destroys everything it touches, and it’s still running wild.

CG: It’s a shitty thing and it’s going to ruin your afternoon and just please get in here before it 

CG: It’s going to destroy the planet isn’t it.

CA: is there anything we can do to stop it?

CG: Look, i don’t know. The director-- that’s GC-- doesn’t know either.

CG: Playing the game will remove the immediate threat, though.

CA: great, i’ll get right on that!

CG: Stay safe, babe.

CA: i’ll do that. <3

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering crossbowGoose [CG].

 

>Carey: Contact Lup for game.

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] began pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 4:10 PM.

 

CA: do you have the game?

UU: Carey! Just who I was about to look for!

UU: AC said I need to get connected with you, like, now.

UU: Yeah, I have the game.

CA: great! let’s get gaming!

UU: Let’s go!

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

>Lup: Be trolled by AC immediately in the past.

 

The time: immediately in the past.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] began trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 4:10 AM.

 

AC: Hey, uh, UU?

UU: Yeah?

AC: You know SGRU&?

AC: Uh, I mean S&UR&.

UU: Yeah.

AC: Uh, Future me here &y the way.

UU: Oh, sup future AC. How’re things in the future?

AC: It’s &een like five minutes from my perspective since last time we talked, so, uh, same as last time:

AC: Lotsa temporally dislocated computers and the &unch of us are ]ust using them.

UU: Cool.

AC: &ut that’s not why I’m talking to you now, uh, obviously.

AC: You need to &oot up S&UR& and get yourself and any remaining-on-Earth friends out of there.

AC: I’m pretty sure remaining-on-Earth friends &asically ]ust entails camouflagedAzure, um, &ut you should get her out of there fast.

AC: A really, um, dangerous thing is on its way, and I don’t want you to have to &e there for that.

UU: Got it, babe!

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering augmentedCotton [AC].

 

>Carey: Boot up game.

 

You stick the SBURB disc into your computer and it goes through a loading process.

Then it’s loaded. Lup is pestering you again. As you chat, she’s placing down items all over your house.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 4:11 PM.

 

UU: Kay, so the cruxtruder is there,

UU: (hallway)

UU: Totem lathe: there, in your room.

UU: Alchemiter:

UU: Gimme a second

UU: Downstairs.

UU: Pre-punched card is in your hair now.

CA: thanks!

UU: No problem, bubula.

CA: so whatdya think was up with the extra threat?

UU: AC talked about it sometimes, sounds like ‘s real dangerous.

UU: Watch it, the stairs are there.

CA: crud, thanks.

UU: Future AC, I should make that distinction, said that it basically fucked everything up.

CA: what?

UU: He did a bunch of analytical nerd shit and determined that it was real bad.

UU: But he couldn’t even tell me all of what he knew because of the preservation of causality or somethin’ like that.

UU: More nerd shit, but real important.

UU: D’ya need my help with opening that?

CA: yeah, ‘s stuck.

UU: I think it’s just like that. Hey, would your mom mind if I used this wheel to open it?

CA: i don’t think so, but oh yeah, she’s not home yet.

CA: we should probably wait for her to get here before i leave the planet.

UU: ‘S fair. I’m gonna pop the top of this thing now, though.

 

>Lup: Pop top.

 

You slam the wheel into the top of the cruxtruder, and the lid pops off, and the kernelsprite comes out of the top, and the timer starts.

 

UU: What’s the time on that thing?

CA: oh fuck

CA: 1:25

UU: Aight, great, let’s go, no time to waste.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>Carey: Do sweet flips + alchemy.

 

You spin the wheel on the cruxtruder and grab the cruxite, and then do the biggest flip you can to enter your room quickly. You stick card and cruxite into the totem lathe and let it rip, which might not be the right word for this situation but who cares.

You take the carved dowel and try to avoid falling down the stairs while taking them three at a time. The kernelsprite, a soft golden in colour, follows you down the stairs.

The carved dowel goes on the alchemiter. The result is a cruxite icicle, which is sort of an unusual item but no time for that.

 

>Carey: Go upstairs and prototype sprite.

 

You take the stairs three at a time again. When you get to the top, you go into your room and over to the TERRARIUM that contains your pet LIZARD. You haven’t really named the LIZARD, but if you had to, SCALES JR. sounds cool. You don’t know a SCALES SR., but you’re pretty sure there is slash was one somewhere.

You very gently and safely place your LIZARD into the kernelsprite. The room is flooded with light, and then the light fades.

The timer says there’s around 45 seconds remaining. You get out the cruxite icicle and get ready to go. Where’s your MOM when you need her?

You feel like something’s watching you.

 

>Carey: Turn around.

 

There’s nothing there… maybe?

 

Lup is pestering you.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 4:12 PM.

 

UU: WHAT the everloving HELL is THAT?

CA: what?

UU: Behind you!

 

>Carey: Turn around again.

 

CA: i don’t see anything.

UU: Great, coolcoolcoolcoolcool, ‘s just, like, great.

UU: Look out!

CA: what is it?

UU: ‘S got, like, eyes, ‘n that’s about it.

UU: Sorta shadowy and sort of looks like maybe bl

UU: Shit, look out!

 

>Carey: Dodge.

 

You step to the side as something brushes very close to your arm. You pull the hand holding the cruxite icicle up into the air, and as you do that, what feels like a very lanky pair of hands grab around your wrist and try to pull it down.

 

UU: It looks like it could be made of black opal

UU: shorter than you

CA: can;t see it, but i can feel it

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] has lost connection!

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] has lost connection!

 

The whatever it is starts to pull your hand down. You don’t want it to get anywhere near the icicle, whatever it wants from it, so you captchalogue your TABLET. It’s holding the hand that has the icicle in it and you can’t reliably captchalogue it, but you get out your dagger.

 

>Carey: STRIFE?

 

You swing the dagger at where you think it is and feel it connect. There’s no clear reaction, though. You bring your knee up into it with a semi-satisfying thunk and its grip on your hand loosens slightly. You captchalogue the cruxite icicle while you have the chance and get out your other dagger.

It feels like you just got socked in the gut, which probably means that’s what happened. You bring both daggers down and they both connect, but it doesn’t seem to have any impact.

You take a step forward and nearly trip over it, so you kick it. You don’t want this thing in your house.

It’s solidly built, but it steps back and you feel a sharp impact to your stomach. You continue advancing slowly, and it slowly continues retreating while beating you up.

By the time you reach the window, you feel really bad off. You jab whatever-it-is with both daggers and kick it through the window as hard as you can, and it drops into the alley behind your house.

Looking out the window, you can see that the sky is dark with clouds, but clouds that are smooth, still, and textureless. The meteor that’s headed for your house is past the clouds, and it’s burning with a fire that seems almost weaker than it should be, though you’re no expert on meteors. The shadows in the alleyway are more soft-edged than usual, but the light that should be where the shadows aren’t is faint, and you can’t tell if the clouds are to blame or not.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at 4:13 PM.

 

UU: Crap, I think the connection went spotty.

UU: That’s all of those, I think.

CA: great let’s go

UU: Let’s.

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

Right now, the timer reads “00:11”.

 

>[Would be S] Carey: Enter.

 

(Picture this scene set to a mix of Unite Synchronization from the Homestuck soundtrack and Robot Rematch from the The Adventure Zone soundtrack. Mostly this would entail switching between the two for most of this.)

 

Carey takes the cruxite icicle out of her sylladex and looks around somewhat nervously. We zoom out to see the room from the perspective of the SBURB server, and it still looks fortunately the same. We zoom out more to Lup on her computer, leaning against it so that her face is so, so close to the screen.

We zoom back in to where Carey is, and she brings the icicle down over her knee. The house starts to be surrounded with light, which we see as we pan sideways, out the front of the house. The border of the entry light is immediately before the LEAN MEAN RAM CAR MACHINE. We continue to pan sideways just a short distance, and see a shorter, light-haired woman that is Carey’s MOM and a taller, dark-haired woman that is Lup’s COUSIN, and despite their respective categories they’re around the same age. They’re hurrying down the street, holding hands.

We pan further sideways at what seems like a not-all-that-fast speed, and we see that apocalyptic wall still approaching. We can fit both the city and the wave of destruction into the same screen, although it’s zoomed out enough that the city looks tiny, while the mass of black opal takes up the entire left-hand fifth of the screen.

We pan into the mass of black opal, and then zoom out through a cloud on the surface of the Light. The scene in the cloud changes. We see a shorter, rounder figure with needle-like horns at the wheel of a ship; we see the D1rector launch something forward; we see a robotic-looking individual with short squarey horns looking stressed, an angular figure with horns curving out wearing a lab coat and complaining, and a somewhat boney character with curly rams horns and a scythe yelling at the other two.

We smash cut back to Carey’s house vanishing into the Medium. The meteor is very close overhead, the timer reads “00:05”, and Carey’s MOM and Lup’s COUSIN are just at the edge of the driveway when the house is gone.

Carey’s MOM grabs Lup’s COUSIN around the waist and jumps into the front seat of the LEAN MEAN RAM CAR MACHINE. She slams it it into reverse and revs the engine and they just fucking gun it backwards, then forwards, at several times legal speeds.

A red curtain swishes closed as the car soars offscreen and a meteor crashes onscreen.

 

>Carey: Look around.

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] began pestering crossbowGoose [CG] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CA: hey, i’m alive, and safely in the Medium.

CA: but just saying, i think the approaching threat might have like more powers.

CG: What?

CA: there was like this invisible thingie in my house.

CA: it tried to fight me and i threw it out the window but i think i’m going to have some major bruises from that.

CA: UU could see it though, or maybe the SBURB client could pick it up.

CG: Oh, shit.

CG: Are you alright, babe?

CA: i’ll absolutely live.

CG: I’ll take your word for it, but stay safe.

CG: I think TA has done healing stuff before; maybe he can patch it up; should you go visit him?

CA: i really appreciate it, but i’ll be fine.

CG: Okay.

CG: What’s your planet like? Mine has a bunch of cool caves and weird walls.

CG: I promise i did not intend to make that be alliteration; it just happened.

CA: let me see… 

 

>Carey: Look around.

 

Your house is wedged between two long wooden blocks, which stretch on for a ways in a somewhat narrow corridor. Looking out your window, you can see many other such blocks. They form tunnels and corridors where the shadows run very dark. The blocks themselves are made of various types of wood, and in the places where the light from Skaia is still shining on them, they look very homely, almost. Or choppable.

 

LAND OF ALLEYWAYS AND WOOD

 

Seven gates stretch above your house up to where Skaia is vibrating very subtly.

 

CA: it’s pretty cool!

CA: there’s like shady back alleys everywhere, but their walls are made of wood, which is interesting.

CA: it’s a nice place.

CG: Great!

CG: I’mma go fight some imps now, see ya.

CA: i’ll work on your house for a bit. we want to make the vertically ultimate house, right?

CG: Yeah.

CG: TTYL!

CA: see ya!

 

crossbowGoose [CG] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

>Lup: Get ready to GO.

 

Your entire house shakes as the meteor that hit Carey’s neighbourhood lands. You brace yourself, and then pop the server disc out of your computer. As you do that, Pesterchum lights up with a message from AC.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] began trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 4:13 PM.

 

AC: Hey, future me here,

AC: This part is from your perspective pretty close to when past me got actual Trollian, so,

AC: Trollian has some really, uh, fantastic temporal mechanics.

AC: Specifically, its &ulletin &oards.

AC: Which are compati&le with Pesterchum, via some sort of driver software or ]ury-rigging that I don’t quite understand.

AC: Um, the &ulletin &oards let you &asically talk to yourself in the future, which is the sort of time stuff you learn to ]ust roll with.

AC: So here’s the link to our group’s main &ulletin &oard, er, specifically the memo on it that I made for me, past me, and you.

AC: It usually comes in &anner form, &ut I’m putting it in a link.

AC: S7arblas7er

UU: Thanks, babe!

AC: No pro&lem!

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering augmentedCotton [AC].

 

>Lup: Open memo.

 

FAC AT ??:?? opened up a memo on board S7arblas7er.

 

CURRENT augmentedCotton [CAC] RIGHT NOW (?) responded to memo.

CAC: Wow, this is some serious temporal mechanics.

CURRENT umbraUnquenchable [CUU] RIGHT NOW (?) responded to memo.

CUU: What’s up, nerds?

CAC: I’m not even sure how this works. Like, uh, all the things we’re typing here are required &y causality?

FAC: That &it is weird. &ut it doesn’t let you read ahead once it’s started, so you’re never going to create a time paradox at least in principle.

CAC: Huh.

CUU: Look, as much as I’d love to watch you two geek out over temporal nonsense for like an hour, I’m pretty sure my planet is about to be eaten by some extradimensional apocalypse monster.

CUU: Is there anything we came here to talk about?

CAC: Your planet is a&out to &e WHAT?

CUU: Crap, forgot to give you the status update.

CUU: Yeah, there’s like a giant apocalypse wave of black opal that’s like going everywhere.

CUU: It might have little minions that can get in people’s houses and are sort of invisible, because I don’t think that was unrelated.

FAC: That sort of stuff actually is most of what we’re here to talk a&out, um.

FAC: Specifically, status updates all around and planning a good next step.

FAC: To &e fair, a good chunk of the purpose of this memo was to test out the memo feature, and sta&le time loops, &ut those are also important.

CUU: Status update: Doing fuckin’ amazing except for the impending additional apocalypse.

CAC: Current status: My planet’s okay and I think CT’s a&out to enter.

FAC: Oh yeah, uh, things are going to start happening very soon.

FAC: For &oth of you. If I remem&er correctly, this is one of the hard parts.

FAC: UU-- Your and your friend’s respective Guardians should &e arriving at your house soon, so wait for them.

FAC: &ut still &oot up S&UR&. Your server player, CC, can, um, pro&a&ly do something a&out the scouts.

CUU: Scouts?

FAC: Oh, um, that’s what we’ve &een calling those creepy quasi-invisi&le things.

FAC: &ecause that seems to &e what they do.

FAC: Past me-- now would &e the ideal time to start alchemizing some &etter weapons.

FAC: Don’t &other with anything too cool this time, ]ust &asic swords and the like.

CAC: Huh?

CAC: &ut cool stuff.

FAC: Not fire this time, not cold, not anything like that.

CAC: &ut uh, I like cool stuff.

FAC: ]ust trust me.

CAC: Alright, got it.

CUU: Yeah, I’mma do that.

CUU: See ya soon?

FAC: See you soon.

CAC: Yeah.

CURRENT augmentedCotton [CAC] has left this memo.

CURRENT umbraUnquenchable [CUU] has left this memo.

FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] closed this memo.

 

>Lup: Contact Magnus.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 4:15 PM.

 

UU: You there?

UU: My penpal said you hafta be my server player, and that like makes sense.

UU: Seriously though can you get over here and get

UU: … 

UU: Get gaming?

UU: I don’t need to enter the session yet, but my penpal said you should at least be there.

CC: oh hey, lup!

CC: i’m busy making friends right now, but what do you want?

UU: Do you have the SBURB server disc?

CC: um…

CC: yeah!

UU: Great, well, can you boot it up and get gaming? I am still in the path of the apocalypse, et cetera,

CC: oh right!

CC: gimme a minute.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

>Lup: Launch game.

 

You boot up the game and it comes up with just some text for a bit-- “Searching For Server Player”.

Presumably, Magnus connects at about that point, and the game goes through a loading sequence.

Then it’s loaded.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at 4:16 PM.

 

UU: Okay, are there any weird black opal lookin’ critters with weird big eyes?

CC: what?

UU: Apparently they’re only visible over the SBURB system.

CC: yes, actually, there are some.

CC: there’s two of them.

CC: actually, three.

CC: one in your room, one in the hall, and one in the kitchen.

UU: The one in my room-- where exactly is it?

CC: it’s hiding in the corner, by your bed.

UU: Great. Time for that shitface to die.

 

>Lup: Blast it the fuck out.

 

You dart forward and jab with your RAD UMBRELLA. It connects with something in the corner, but it feels like you just jabbed a sponge. It connects, but hardly in a satisfactory way.

You reach over your umbrella and grab it by the something. It grabs onto your hand and starts pulling against it. It has weird thin smooth hands that are unpleasantly warm, and like, your natural body temperature is hardly cold, but its hands are still unpleasantly warm. It’s also really strong, as evidenced by the fact that it fucking judo flips you into the wall. Your umbrella swings up and away from the scout thing because you’re still holding it, and you land on the bed on your face.

Based on the way the door bangs open, you’re pretty sure it just ran out of the room. Well, that’s just excellent. Your tailbone hurts from being flipped into the wall, and your face hurts from slamming into the bed, but it could have been way worse and probably could have broken your neck.

 

CC: holy shit!

CC: are you okay?

UU: Yeah, I’m just stellar.

UU: Geez, that thing kicked my ass.

UU: The one that was in Carey’s house wasn’t that strong.

CC: yikes.

CC: okay, so i can’t pick them up with SBURB mechanics, either.

UU: What was that noise?

CC: i threw a chair at the one in the hall.

CC: it sort of worked!

CC: hang on, imma delete the wall it’s up against.

CC: one down, two to go.

CC: oh shit. there are more outside.

CC: wall replaced, don’t worry.

CC: so what’s the plan?

UU: We gotta keep all the weird shadow creatures, which are called scouts apparently, the fuck outta here until my cousin gets back, then I’m gonna go into the Medium.

CC: so are we just going to do some tower defense until your cousin arrives?

UU: D’you have a better solution?

CC: i mean, i’ve been really getting to know some ducks.

CC: hang on, one of those things just hid in the cupboard.

CC: okay, high velocity chair-based combat incoming.

UU: Let me back you up. I don’t like just sitting here either.

UU: Can you make a chair that can go on the end of an umbrella?

CC: no problem! that’s what i do best!

CC: not literally that, but close enough.

UU: Great!

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

>Lup: Engage in high velocity chair-based combat, aka STRIFE?.

 

Magnus drops one of the dining chairs in the hallway and slams the leg of another chair through the center of the seat hard. You stick the SOMEWHAT DAMAGED DINING CHAIR onto the end of your RAD UMBRELLA to create a HELLA RAD CHAIR-BASED IMPROVISED UMBRELLA WEAPON. You get into the kitchen just on time to see Magnus using the SBURB server to just fling the remaining dining chairs around. When one of them goes flying close to your location, you swing the HELLA RAD CHAIR-BASED IMPROVISED WEAPON around in front of you and feel it connect with something solid. You do a wide spin and feel it go flying, and then the seat of a chair drops from the ceiling at approximately where it might have landed.

You take a moment to reflect on how this is easily the most surreal fight you’ve ever had.

Something goes flying through the window, which cracks. A chair swings around and stops abruptly, and you swing the HELLA RAD CHAIR-BASED IMPROVISED WEAPON like a baseball bat just in time and feel it connect. That’s a solid baseball shot.

You don’t know anything about baseball, even though you were in a baseball thing when you were like two. But you do know that the scout goes soaring through the window, because it smashes through in a different location than the first one.

Magnus replaces the broken pieces of the window with just solid wall.

 

>Magnus: Keep looking for scouts.

 

You page around Lup’s house for like a minute while listening to more stories from the duck consorts. Right now, one who wants to be a sheriff or some other form of law enforcement is talking. They’re a little bit crass, but still pretty nice.

You hear footsteps from somewhere close by. You look up and see someone hiding in a shadow.

You actually sort of recognize the type of being this person is from the small number of times you’ve been awake on the Prospitian moon. This person is a carapacian, which are the natives of Prospit and Derse. The ones you’ve seen, being from Prospit, have white carapaces-- from this one’s black carapace, you assume they are probably from Derse.

You inquire as to their identity and intentions in a friendly and hospitable way, and they glare at you and pull out a fucking gun. This carapacian keeps the gun levelled at you and the somewhat panicked duck consorts and tells you that he’s the governor and he could use your help at defeating this land’s denizen. Or something like that.

You tell him that he really needs to chill vis a vis: whether or not to immediately point a gun at people, and grab your WOODEN SHIELD out of your sylladex. He shoots the gun at you. You block the bullet with your shield, which might be mostly luck to be honest. Also the fact that it wasn’t a fast bullet.

The duck consorts are really impressed with your lucky shield usage. The gun governor carapacian runs off.

You can’t let someone with a gun and that itchy of a trigger finger just run around and risk hurting all the dear, sweet, precious duck consorts! You quickly scan over Lup’s house again okay great no more scouts right now.

But you shouldn’t leave Lup without the resources to get into the Medium. This could take a little while!

 

>Lup: Be pestered by Magnus.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] began pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 4:18 PM.

 

CC: i’m gonna leave all the important SBURB pieces around your house, okay?

CC: something’s sort of happening on my side and i might be busy.

UU: Um, I guess that works.

CC: great, i’ve got this.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] has ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

Magnus also drops the captcha code for some sort of wooden umbrella he alchemized into your e-mail. Then he starts placing down items.

The alchemiter goes in place of the kitchen table. He has to take everything out of the bathroom to put the cruxtruder in it. The totem lathe goes in the hall. The things that were in the bathroom go mostly on the roof. A bunch of random stuff falls out of the cabinets from the bathroom sink as he removes it from the room: a really old BASEBALL GLOVE, seventeen SHITTY SKATEBOARDS, two LIGHTERS, approximately one fuckillion FAKE RAVEN FEATHERS, and a very small container of GASOLINE or twenty. The pre-punched card is set delicately on your computer.

Presumably, he’s going to go off and be a dang hero and solve whatever’s happening on his side with no further problems, unless whatever’s happening on his side requires any subtlety whatsoever.

 

You hear a noise. It sounds like an engine getting closer. That might be your COUSIN and Carey’s MOM! That’d be sweet.

You hear another noise. It sounds like a ‘THUNK’, like something collided with something else, and then a ‘POP’, like the lid of something burst off. It’s coming from the bathroom that the cruxtruder is in.

 

>Lup: Inspect suspicious bathroom.

 

The door to the bathroom is already open, but it was that way before. You peek into it and see that the lid of the cruxtruder has been popped off, revealing a KERNELSPRITE and a timer showing you a bit under two minutes.

Something that you can’t see rams into your stomach at high speeds and knocks the wind out of you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

 

>Lup: STRIFE?

 

You get out your umbrella and start swinging. The umbrella connects satisfyingly a few times, but you’re having a low accuracy rate. The kernelsprite inches upwards like it’s trying to get away from something.

Oh shit, what happens if those things get prototyped? Oh shit!

You don’t even want to think about this possibility. You make sure to aim your swings so that the few times that they hit, they will aim slightly more down.

Uh, there’s no way of knowing if they’re right up by the sprite right now, and you don’t want to risk that risk.

You really need a RADDER UMBRELLA in times like these. The HELLA RAD just isn’t cutting it for hitting all of these things, it’s just an umbrella with a chair on the end. You smack one of the scouts over the probably top and the sound is satisfying, if not effective.

You fall over backwards and are pinned under one of the scouts, at least presumably. Right now there’s literally nothing you can do.

You’re lying on top of some of the SHITTY SKATEBOARDS, too, and it’s uncomfortable. Wait, what if you prototyped something else before they could get to it?

You grab the nearest object, which is the really old BASEBALL GLOVE, and launch it at the KERNELSPRITE with some serious baseball shit. The room fills with light.

You don’t even wait for the illumination to subside. You reach around for something else and-- ah, a LIGHTER! This will have to do.

You click the little dealie on the LIGHTER that lights it the fuck up and launch the still-on-fire LIGHTER into the BASEBALL-GLOVE-SPRITE. The room fills with light again, and when it subsides your SPRITE shows a baseball glove that appears to be on fire.

You’re still pinned under the scout, though. One of the SHITTY SKATEBOARDS goes sliding down the hallway.

There’s a loud smashing noise from your room. You roll to the side as hard as you can and possibly dump the scout onto one of the skateboards, although there’s no way to know for sure.

 

>Lup: Inspect smashing from room.

 

It’s easy enough to see the source: Your computer’s disc drive has been forced open like someone didn’t know how else to open it, and the SBURB player disc is in tiny fragments.

Well.

What?

The rest of your room is mostly intact, but you do feel like something’s watching you, which probably means a bunch of those scouts are just all over your room.

The pre-punched card is still safely on top of the computer, though.

 

>Lup: Get pre-punched card.

 

You make your way over to the computer very carefully, because your fucking house is full of invisible murder gremlins, but you are unassaulted. You captchalogue the pre-punched card and get out of the room as fast as possible.

 

>Lup: Get cruxite dowels.

 

You go into the empty bathroom carefully. Geez, your house really is infested with those things. The task of getting even any of them out is a truly ridiculous one, and without some means of detecting them, you’re not sure if you’re up to it, especially with about a minute left on the timer.

You grab a couple extra cruxite dowels as you go, and sweep a hand around until you grab one of the scouts, whom you go to the significant effort of lifting in order to throw through a window. Based on the smashedness of the window, it seems to work. You attempt to quickly plug the window with a SHITTY SKATEBOARD.

 

>Lup: Carve cruxite dowel.

 

You stick the dowel and the card into the totem lathe and set it to carve. You get a carved cruxite dowel, which is sort of obvious.

The car engine noise that’s been going on outside is getting pretty close, and it squeals to a stop. You rush over to the window and see what you’re pretty sure is called the LEAN MEAN RAM CAR MACHINE pull into your driveway. Your COUSIN and Carey’s MOM are both crammed into the front seat.

Your house, it is worthy of note, is a level of mess that has never been witnessed before. Your COUSIN doesn’t really care about that kind of stuff, but Carey’s MOM might. Either way, you certainly don’t have enough time to clean it up.

 

>Lup: Greet guardians.

 

The two of them pull the door open and you tell them to close it behind them. Your COUSIN pushes it closed.

You give them the heads-up vis a vis your house being infested with invisible heck monsters.

Carey’s MOM tells you that she can probably help with that, and your COUSIN supports that analysis. Carey’s MOM does some really impressive flips, kicks, and other cool things, and based on the amount of windows that get smashed, she has a pretty good success rate. Your COUSIN pulls out what looks like some sort of whip and does some really cool things with it that probably impact the scouts somehow.

You have no way of gauging how much of a success rate they’re having, though. Also, the damage to your SBURB disc might mean that even if Magnus weren’t busy he wouldn’t be able to see what was going on.

 

>Lup: Pester AC.

 

You’re pretty sure this isn’t going to access future AC, who’s the one who has some means of seeing the big picture, but chatting up your pen-pal is a good way to wait for the world to hopefully not end.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering augmentedCotton [AC] at 4:20 PM.

 

UU: I think this anti-apocalypse rocket is about to blast off; just waiting for my cousin to try to deal with all those scout things that future (?) you talked about.

AC: Oh hey, that’s great!

AC: I’m pretty sure, um, everyone in my session is almost in the game &y now, too!

AC: Uh, gotta go, there’s a lot of imps getting real close.

UU: Good luck, babe!

AC: Same to you.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] ceased trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

Your COUSIN and Carey’s MOM have slowed down their awesome stunts, and they seem to be pretty sure the coast is mostly clear, and also that there’s literally seconds to go before you have to enter.

It’s go time!

 

>[Would be S] Lup: Enter.

 

(This part would be set to a mashup of Beatdown [Strider Style] from the Homestuck soundtrack and Wonderland Round Three from the TAZ soundtrack.)

 

Lup slides the carved cruxite dowel onto its platform. We zoom out to see the meteor pop out of its portal, and it looks enormous, but a thick tendril of black opal atomizes the meteor and shoves its way through the portal.

The black opal apocalypse is looming overhead. We zoom back down into Lup’s house and watch as the alchemiter creates a cruxite umbrella. In the background, Carey’s MOM looks to the side abruptly like she’s looking for something, and then holds up a hand in warning and dashes towards a cupboard.

The cupboard door slams open, and she lunges at something and misses. The cruxite umbrella snaps in the middle. The house is surrounded in light.

We zoom out very rapidly until the view emerges from a cloud on the surface of the Light. We see Merle get a good hammer hit in on an imp with a lizard-looking tongue and a vine around its middle, which pops apart into grist. We zoom into another cloud.

We see a session-- not the one we’ve been focussing on thus far, but a different one, with ten planets orbiting Skaia. We see a bright streak of purple enter into this session, and then we cut down to more of a ground-level view.

We have a back view of the person with needle-like horns watching this purple glow zoom downwards, and he is standing on the prow of some sort of boat. We see the Director, standing in the entrance to a squarish stone tunnel and watching this light. We see all the people we saw in the previous not-quite-flash, a person with horns like bug legs, a short but very strong lady with vaguely axe-shaped horns, and a round and buff someone with T-shaped horns and long curly hair held back with a bronze bandanna, and all of these people are watching this brilliant streak descend.

We see one more person other than those nine. As the Light streaks into their session in a wave of violet, someone with a rust-red jacket and horns that vaguely resemble thicker antennae closes their computer screen to stare at it, but not before we see on their screen the message “augmentedCotton [AC] ceased trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU].”

We zoom out of the cloud on the Light now, and into a different one. We see Magnus sprinting after the Dersite that was lurking around. The scene cuts forward rapidly and we see Magnus holding onto the side of one of the rope bridges, trying not to fall off. The scene cuts forward again, and we see something else, but we’re zooming out of the cloud too quickly to tell what it is.

Finally, we zoom back into the first cloud. Lup’s house vanishes in a burst of light, and a wave of the horrid black opal stuff crashes down where it was. We zoom out through the black opal stuff to see it wrapped around what might very well be the entire planet, a thick string of it connecting this bubble to a much larger mass, and as it abruptly contracts, a bright red curtain swings closed over the scene.

Only to swing open again, because this act isn’t quite over yet.

 

>Lup: What even in the hell.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering augmentedCotton [AC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

UU: I’m in the Medium, but I’m not sure what’s up with those scout things.

UU: Oh, uh, wait.

UU: Ah, shit biscuits.

AC: Huh?

UU: I think this means some of the scouts are also in the Medium, and that can’t possibly be good.

AC: Oh no!

UU: Yeah.

UU: But I mean, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

AC: Yeah, that’s a good point.

AC: What’s your planet like?

UU: Warm. Lots of fire, ‘s not that bad.

AC: Great, I guess.

AC: Gotta dash, all the monsters are a lot tougher now.

AC: See you later!

UU: Later, babe!

 

augmentedCotton [AC] ceased trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

>Lup: Look around.

 

Your planet is, in fact, very warm, and does have lots of fire. The topography of it is smooth, and in place of whatever the topography of things is normally made of, the ground is black glass. Although that really isn’t flammable to your knowledge (and you’ve set quite a few things on fire), there are still small fires that crop up on the surface of the glass at arbitrary moments and vanish just as quickly.

Some of the smooth glass stretches notably up, and these taller plateau regions are less on fire and seem to have buildings on them.

 

LAND OF GLASS AND FIRE

 

Stretching above your house, seven glowing gates lead up to Skaia, which was waving subtly a moment ago but now is picking up its shaking.

 

>Lup: Look around entire session.

 

This is the first time that everyone’s planets are together in the session, and you look around at them. By Skaia lies Prospit, and on the very edge of space lies Derse. You can see the red-brown of Magnus’s planet (LOHAR), the mostly just pink of Taako’s planet (LOPAC), the sandbar brown and blue-green of Merle’s planet (LOFAS), the grey of Killian’s planet (LOCAW), the various shades of brown of Carey’s planet (LOAAW), and now the subtly glowy black of your planet (LOGAF).

This is the first time that all the planets are together, and it looks slightly beautiful. If you had a camera, you would take a picture right now.

Unfortunately, it is also the last time that all the planets of your session will be intact in this beautiful symmetry. As you look around at the planets, you hear a loud explosion.

 

A bright red curtain swings closed over this scene, and now the act is over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Eleventh Hour OST has a song that's literally about the apocalypse and I didn't know that until recently, so dang it. It doesn't really work well when smashed up with any other songs though.
> 
> If you have validation or advice, my tumblr is aquelondungeonmaster and I don't do much on it.


	5. Act IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that these kids don't have to worry about the apocalypse anymore, it should be all uphill from here, right? Except for the fact that someone's planet just exploded... they're not on easy street yet, it seems. Carey makes a stablet. Killian does some rad exploring stuff. Lup finds what she was looking for. Taako takes a ride. Merle takes a nap. Magnus takes a tumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell yeah, being validated on the internet is great.

>Act IV Act I.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering augmentedCotton [AC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

UU: Hey, so I just wanted to let you know that one of the planets in my session just blew the fuck up.

UU: Still busy?

UU: That’s cool, babe. Tell me if you have any suggestions or dirt on your session when you get this message.

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] ceased pestering augmentedCotton [AC].

 

>Magnus: Keep pursuing.

 

Seconds in the past… 

 

You’ve been chasing this carapacian for several minutes, and he seems to be getting tired. You still haven’t been able to catch up with him, though.

The carapacian sprints across a rope bridge that leads to a plateau with no other exits. As he gets off of it, you put on a burst of speed and sprint onto the bridge.

It’s not the best bridge you’ve ever seen-- it’s very much bouncing as you go.

You collide with something on the bridge at high speeds. There isn’t anything on the bridge that you can see, but you still collide at the speed you’re running at.

You trip and are propelled upwards by the bridge’s bounciness, and wind up getting flipped over the edge of the bridge. You grab onto the guard rails with both hands, but most of your weight is still hanging dangerously above the roaring waters far, far below.

 

>Magnus: Pull yourself up.

 

You use your lifting skills and haul yourself onto the bridge, which is now rocking back and forth dangerously. You hold onto the guard rails, even though they’re flimsy, for the rest of the bridge crossing, but still hurry across the remainder of the bridge.

You get onto the plateau just on time to watch the carapacian governor person finish fiddling with something and flip a switch.

You rush at him, and he pulls something out of his pocket that unfolds into some sort of small purple aircraft. It’s really small, but it’s still an aircraft. He gets into it and flies off.

You lunge at the aircraft with your axe, but you miss entirely.

Someone is trolling you. It’s TG.

 

>Magnus: Answer troll.

 

tongsandGavel [TG] began trolling chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

TG: Okay, CC, do you see +he +allest pla+eau area?

TG: Go +here now.

CC: huh?

TG: Look around and look for +he +allest pla+eau |n s|gh+.

 

>Magnus: Look around.

 

The tallest plateau is pretty easy to pinpoint, because it’s much higher in the air than all the other plateaus. A series of much narrower plateaus lead up to it in a spiralling path of angled bridges.

 

CC: i see it.

TG: Grea+.

TG: Go +o |+.

CC: what? why?

TG: Go +here r|gh+ now! +rus+ me on +h|s.

 

tongsandGavel [TG] ceased trolling chargingCarpenter [CC].

 

>Magnus: Go there.

 

You start making your way there, and as you do you hear a faint sort of hissing. You’ve passed by the village, and as you look back at that first plateau you were on when the carapacian did the thing, you see it slide off of the bottom half of the plateau and crash into another plateau.

You get to the first of the spiralling upward plateaus and start rushing up the bridges. You’re trusting TG on this one.

At first, the bridges are nearly horizontal, but as you keep going, they start getting steeper. Another column of rock far below you topples over.

The bridges are starting to edge towards ladder quality, but the tallest plateau is nearly in reach.

 

>[Would be S, I guess] Magnus: Finish ascending.

 

(In a truly unconventional twist, this one’s just set to one song. In a slightly less unconventional twist, it’s The Clock Strikes Noon (Apocalypse!) from the TAZ soundtrack. Ideally also picture sound effects edited in.)

 

You clamber up one of the ladders several steps at a time as the ground starts almost vibrating. You try not to look down, but the plateaus behind you are collapsing. You can hear them.

There’s just one more ladder to go before you reach the big plateau, and you take it two rungs at a time. As you start to reach the top, there’s the sound of an explosion and everything goes sideways. You pull yourself onto the plateau and try to keep your balance.

There’s some sort of red slab of rock on this plateau.

You don’t have time to see more about it because pretty much as you notice it, the plateau topples over and everything is falling.

 

>Merle: Fight some imps.

 

Seconds in the past… 

You’ve been having a bit of trouble with that, but you’ve been starting to get on it. You pop one of the two imps that you’re currently up against.

As you do that, something happens to the other one, which has bear ears and a sort of viney cloak, and what looks like a baseball glove appears on its hand. This has been happening on and off as more of your friends enter the Medium, but um, a baseball glove? Maybe Lup picked something harmless to prototype.

You change your mind about that analysis as the baseball glove catches on fire and rams into your gut. You bring your hammer into a cross-chop which narrowly misses the entire imp and try to extinguish the fire which is starting on your shirt.

You manage to get an actual hit in on the imp, and then another one as it sets the leg of your pants on fire. It pops apart into grist as you hit it again, and you struggle to stop the fire from burning up your pants.

You collect all the grist. As you’re doing that, your GRAMPS comes pretty much rushing upstairs.

 

>Merle: Talk to gramps.

 

He sounds really worried. He’s rambling on about the thing from the safe and also about how the game works and imps and a list of things that are dangerous.

You tell him to cool it. He tells you that he’s really worried, and wants to find some way to protect you that can actually help.

You tell him you’re pretty sure the game doesn’t have that.

He thinks about what you said, and lists off a few cases that could be to the contrary but haven’t really been much help. He gives you a heads-up that guardians usually wind up dying. He thinks about it some more, and then he tells you he has come up with an idea.

He asks where your sprite is.

 

>Merle: Find sprite.

 

Your sprite is floating rather uselessly, because you prototyped a potted plant. It has drifted up towards the ceiling and is sort of chilling there.

Your GRAMPS asks if it would be okay with you for him to sort of guide you through the game.

You make a point of really thinking about it. You reluctantly tell him that it’s okay, provided he gives you some privacy most of the time.

He’s delighted.

 

>Merle: Prototype sprite.

 

Your GRAMPS does his best jump up to the sprite, and the room fills with light for just a second.

 

GRAMPSSPRITE: This is great, sir!

MERLE: You don’t have to say ‘sir’ all the time, you know.

GRAMPSSPRITE: I know, but don’t worry about it.

GRAMPSSPRITE: I’m going to give you some advice now.

GRAMPSSPRITE: You should start building your friend’s house taller. That’s really important!

MERLE: I’ll do that.

GRAMPSSPRITE: Oh, do you want to hear what’s the basic goal of this game?

MERLE: No, actually, I’d prefer to just fight imps all day.

GRAMPSSPRITE: Really? Oh… 

MERLE: Eh, it’s fine. Go ahead.

GRAMPSSPRITE: Alright! So there are two armies in the battlefield of Skaia and… 

GRAMPSSPRITE: It’s basically chess. You’re good at chess, right?

MERLE: Yeah.

GRAMPSSPRITE: It’s chess, but basically no matter what, the White Army or Prospitians are going to lose.

GRAMPSSPRITE: So your job, and also the job of all the other players, is to keep playing even after the defeat of the side that agrees with your mission.

MERLE: How does that work?

GRAMPSSPRITE: It’s just the setup of the game.

MERLE: Also, what mission?

GRAMPSSPRITE: To put it simply: the reproduction of existence.

GRAMPSSPRITE: Although I suppose it would be complicated by the presence of those extenuating factors that are connected to that ‘Light’ thing.

GRAMPSSPRITE: Oh, and your session’s lack of some essential pieces to the puzzle means that you’re going to have to change the situation in order to even do that.

MERLE: Most of that was just a load of mumbo-jumbo.

MERLE: Hang on, someone’s pestering me.

MERLE: Uh, trolling.

 

>Merle: Answer troll.

 

carpeAstrum [CA] began trolling truthAura [TA] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CA: By now, your en7ire friend group is in 7he Medium, which would be ama7ing if 7he si7ua7ion weren’7 already bordering on dire.

CA: I7 will be fine for now, bu7 be careful. In 7he fu7ure, i7 will be helpful 7o know 7ha7 al7erna7e arrangemen7s can be found on 7he moons for many 7hings.

TA: Huh?

TA: Alternate arrangements for what?

CA: Al7erna7e arrangemen7s for god 7iering.

TA: For what, now?

CA: If you do 7ha7, you ge7 a sor7 of… resis7ance 7o dying, as well as a boos7 7owards developing classpec7-based powers.

TA: What’s a classpect?

CA: I7’s a 7ype of personali7y assessmen7 slash my7hological role you fill. I7’s always “Class” of “Aspec7”, bu7 I’m no7 here 7o 7ell you all abou7 7hem.

CA: Mine is Heir of Blood. I’m fairly cer7ain yours is Page of Life.

CA: Bu7 7ha7 really isn’7 relevan7! We’re ge77ing slowly closer 7o 7he par7s where 7hings con7inue 7o go wrong.

TA: Whaddya mean by that? We’re out of the way of that apocalypse stuff for now, right?

CA: For 7he mos7 par7, for now.

CA: Ac7ually, 7hough, you may wan7 7o look up some7ime soon. Don’7 worry abou7 i7 7oo much, 7hough.

CA: 7ha7 si7ua7ion is under con7rol? 7he men7ion of 7hings going wrong jus7 reminded me abou7 i7.

CA: Af7er 7ha7 shakes ou7, I encourage you 7o alchemi7e some useful i7ems and 7hen 7ake a nap, mos7ly because while I don’7 have a clear view on wha7 happens, I 7hink 7hings are going 7o go wrong ei7her way, and I would wan7 7o a7 leas7 see wha7 is abou7 7o happen before i7 does.

CA: I ge7 7ha7 7ha7 sounds coun7erproduc7ive, bu7 7rus7 me i7 isn’t.

TA: Alright, got it.

 

carpeAstrum [CA] ceased trolling truthAura [TA].

 

>Merle: Consider alchemizing things.

 

You start to look for the cruxtruder, but before you can get to it, from somewhere in the Medium you hear an explosion.

 

>Taako: Hit up your sprite vis a vis: what to do.

 

Seconds in the past… 

 

TAAKO: hey, m’guy, d’you have any idea what we’re s’posed to be doin’ here?

TAAKO: i’ve just been adding to mags’s house

TAAKO: like ah yes, you need like three more bedrooms here, yeah, that seems about right,

TAAKO: this is a reasonable number of hallways no it’s not it’s too small

TAAKO: here, i alchemized some more oats

GARYLSPRITE: thanks, m’dude

GARYLSPRITE: to my super cool horse knowledge, that is literally what you have to do

GARYLSPRITE: but if you want to do something even cooler, which i totally understand, you could look into your land’s quest

GARYLSPRITE: or poke around for portals; those lead to cool places sometimes

TAAKO: great, sounds fun

TAAKO: what’s my land’s quest?

GARYLSPRITE: it has something to do with doing some awesome cooking, and probably also ties back into your classpect or some shit like that

TAAKO: classpect?

GARYLSPRITE: the type of Hero you are

GARYLSPRITE: yours would totally be the cool one, but they don’t have a set cool one

GARYLSPRITE: pretty sure it’s Witch of Mind, which is still pretty cool, yo

TAAKO: so, like, how do i get that?

GARYLSPRITE: your Denizen, who is in the middle of your planet, is the key to doing that sort of shit, specifically doing your quest

TAAKO: great

TAAKO: so what you’re sayin’ is that i should go explorin’

GARYLSPRITE: i guess so, dude

GARYLSPRITE: hey, if you need a ride to go exploring, sprites may not be quadrupedal but i can give awesome piggyback rides

TAAKO: i’m into it

GARYLSPRITE: great, m’dude, hop on and let’s goooo!

TAAKO: hell yeah!

 

>Taako: Ride beloved phantom steed into sunset.

 

First, you alchemize two pairs of rad sunglasses by copying the code for a pair you had in your room somewhere. You put on one of the pairs and give the other to Garyl.

You start to ride off into the-- well, there isn’t really a sunset, because there isn’t a sun in here and everything is illuminated by a huge ball of blue sky that is directly overhead, but you still look really cool.

Unfortunately, right at that moment from somewhere up in that same sky, there is an explosion.

 

>Killian: Talk to Carey.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CG: I don’t think there is a way for me to get to your planet that’s efficient.

CG: There’s a way for you to get to mine apparently, and it’s the second gate of your planet, but i sort of want to explore these cool ravines.

CA: then maybe we should do independent spelunking for now?

CA: also, if i build your house all the way up, would that work?

CG: Yeah, probably, but you need lots of grist for that, silly, so it’s going to take a while.

CA: we could work on getting grist.

CA: but if we’re spelunking then we can’t really use it, right?

CG: Yeah. Um… 

CA: ooh! what if we alchemized better gaming sets?

CA: like, portable ones!

CG: Great idea!

CG: Hold on, we could also alchemize like, jet packs or something to get from planet to planet!

CA: that’d be awesome! let’s do that!

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering crossbowGoose [CG].

 

>Killian: Combine music device && headphones.

 

You create WIRELESS HOLO-HEADPHONES, which are pretty sweet, but don’t have disc capacity.

Before you have enough time to alchemize anything else, you are distracted by a noise from somewhere out in the Medium. It’s an explosion.

 

>Carey: Combine tablet && knife.

 

You create an IMPALED TABLET. It’s useless. Well, at least you can say you tried.

Or you could call it a STABLET. Okay, that’s the only good thing you can do with it.

Almost right away, but probably unrelated to your unfortunate alchemization, you hear from somewhere in the Medium the sound of an explosion.

 

>[Would be S] Magnus: Fall and Rise.

 

(Please picture this scene set to a beautiful mashup of Savior of the Waking World from the Homestuck soundtrack and Disrobed from the TAZ soundtrack.)

 

We see Magnus trying to keep his balance as the plateau tilts ninety degrees and snaps at some point along the line. He’s rushing to the highest point of the plateau, and he winds up using one of the four columns that mark the corners of the red slab thing in an attempt to get a stepping-stool.

The pillar falls away from under him, and then both of them are falling, which we see in silhouette from the side. Magnus closes the distance between the two and lands on the bed hard. We get a somewhat birds-eye view of Magnus and the red rock bed slowly descending as other plateaus topple over in the background.

We cut over to a side view. We see Magnus illuminated by a sort of projection of a stylized gear that’s now floating above the bed. Enough of the other pillars are gone that we can clearly see it from the side, even from a great distance.

We see everyone else staring at Magnus’s planet as it’s lit up by the red gear dealie: Taako perched on Garylsprite, Merle leaning out a window, Killian and Carey in their houses, Lup standing on a flat area of glass just outside. From these perspectives, we can see just how bad off Magnus’s planet is now-- about half of it is more of a debris field than a planet. But, because of the big glowing gear symbol, it’s pretty clear that something magical is happening.

We see Magnus’s dreamself asleep on Prospit’s moon. A rough approximation of a shadowy form peeks in the window, and then moves downward and vanishes.

The same injuries that were on awake Magnus materialize on his dreamself, who then goes into glowing silhouette and disappears.

We see Skaia-- the blue one, the legit one. We zoom past its surface and see the Battlefield in its core, which is to say a gigantic, planet-sized-and-shaped chessboard with more chessboard detail stretching through the air above it like a sort of funnel cake made of planet. We pan down to the surface of the non-funnel cake part, where a bright shape starts to form.

The scene splits into two halves: Magnus under the glowing gear, actually starting to levitate up from the bed in a way that seems to have more to do with magic than the fact that the bed is still falling; and the bright silhouette in Skaia, which forms into a Magnus-like shape and then becomes Magnus.

He’s wearing a red sort of robe or dress. It has a hood, which extends in the front into two somewhat long tassels and in the back into one tassel. On the front of it is the same gear symbol that was glowing above the falling bed, which on the other half of the scene we see hit the ground. The cutscene ends with Magnus looking around with an expression of basically just ‘holy shit’.

 

>Magnus: Receive pestering by literally everyone.

 

Everyone starts pestering you at the same time. You go through the list one by one, but as quickly as possible.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CT: holy crap, dude, are you okay?

CT: i mean like, your planet just mostly blew the fuck up, so… 

CC: i’m fine. it’s sort of a long story.

CT: like, i’m not too concerned or- oh excellent holy shit

CT: great job not dying i guess?

CT: dude seriously though how did you do that

CC: i’ll fill you in on the details once i talk to everyone else.

CT: okay great cool

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CA: what just happened to your planet?

CA: ARE YOU OKAY???

CC: i don’t know what happened to my planet. i think some carapacian guy had something to do with it. >:(

CC: i’m fine. it’s a long story, but i’m alive, i think?

CC: long story.

CA: well, i’m just really glad you’re okay.

CA: you really scared me there.

CA: don’t do that again!

CC: i’ll try to avoid it. i’m going to go talk to everyone else.

CA: alright, you should definitely do that.

CA: i’ll tell killian, to save you some time.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering camouflagedAzure [CA].

 

truthAura [TA] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

TA: Did your planet just explode?

CC: yeah, but i’m fine. it’s a long story.

TA: Yeah, alright, that sort of makes sense.

TA: Not a big fan of the planet exploding bit, though.

CC: yeah, that’s fair.

CC: i’m going to go talk to everyone else. see ya!

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering truthAura [TA].

 

umbraUnquenchable [UU] began pestering chargingCarpenter [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

UU: What the fuck?

UU: Dude, you alright? Your entire planet just sort of went kablooey.

UU: What the actual hell happened there?

CC: uh, yeah, that did happen.

CC: i’m fine. it’s a long story.

UU: I’m really glad you’re okay!

UU: Was there, like, anything important on your planet?

CC: oh.

CC: well shit.

UU: On a scale from ‘second-favourite book’ to ‘people’, how bad is it?

CC: there were in fact people there! shit! 

UU: Oh fuck.

 

chargingCarpenter [CC] ceased pestering umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

You’re going to need a minute. Or several.

 

>Taako: Go exploring.

 

You certainly look very cool, riding across the pink terrain, which is mostly smooth but has spiky bits and foliage, taking a piggyback ride on a purple, sort of ghostly-looking binicorn with rad sunglasses.

You pass by a village of what looks like mongeese. They seem pretty cool, but you keep going. You’re looking for more interesting landmarks.

You’re not really finding any.

 

>Lup: Combine rad umbrella && remaining lighter.

 

You create a BURNING UMBRELLA. It’s very cool and pretty much exactly what you’re looking for except for that it immediately burns up.

Your sprite seems pretty happy about it burning up, but there’s nothing left of the umbrella and that’s not going to be useful. You suspect that your sprite thrives on destruction.

 

>Lup: Combine rad umbrella || remaining lighter.

 

You create the RADDER UMBRELLA MK 1.0. It has the end of a lighter at the tip, and a button on the handle. When you press the button, a spark comes out of the tip of the umbrella.

This is exactly what you were looking for.

 

>Lup: Go exploring.

 

You step out of your house again and very carefully make your way across the glass. It’s pretty slippery and difficult to keep your balance on, but you start to make your way around.

You’re looking for interesting landmarks, but other than a fire which starts out of nowhere pretty much right under your feet, (which is actually pretty awesome,) you’re not finding any.

 

>Merle: Combine shoes && seaweed.

 

You create MAGIC JUMPING BOOTS, but they’re sort of gross. Taako might like them, though-- they’re cool other than their grossness.

 

>Merle: Combine shoes || seaweed.

 

You create A REALLY LONG SHOELACE. Or you would, except for that it’s so long that it costs more grist than you have.

 

>Merle: Check captcha code on Light.

 

You captchalogue the Light and flip over the card.

There isn’t even the semblance of a code on the back of this card: it’s just solid purple, the same colour as the Light itself.

You de-captchalogue the Light.

 

>Merle: Take a nap.

 

That was the advice carpeAstrum gave you, and it seems like a good idea to you, so you go up to your room and try to go to sleep.

It is literally the middle of the day, as far as you can tell, so that’s not particularly easy. Still, eventually you do get to sleep.

 

>Dream Merle: Wake up.

 

You do that.

Okay, this has only happened a couple times for you before, but all of those times were really amazing. See, from Prospit’s moon, you get a clear view of the clouds in the big cloud ball of Skaia, which is great because they tell you useful information.

Problem is, they don’t tell you if you left Pesterchum on silent mode again, which is the sort of thing you really need to know. Right now, though, one of the clouds is showing Magnus looking very nice in some sort of red outfit. He’s also flying, which is rather cool.

There’s a faint noise from outside your window.

 

>Dream Merle: Look outside.

 

You don’t see anything outside.

Wait nevermind there’s a sort of faint shadowy semi-translucent… hand? It’s holding onto your windowsill.

Whatever is connected to that hand propels itself up very quickly and goes over your head, giving you what you’re pretty sure is a nasty bruise and landing behind your back.

 

>Dream Merle: Turn around.

 

You turn around.

The shadowy figure is standing in your room. It’s mostly translucent and you actually can’t tell exactly where it is. But if you squint, you can see it’s holding a knife.

Well, um, fuck.

 

>Carey: Combine tablet || impaled tablet && GristTorrent CD.

 

You’ve been doing a bit of alchemy offscreen, including getting a GristTorrent CD (because those things are probably very useful) and WIRELESS HOLO-HEADPHONES, which Killian sent you the code for so you could keep in touch more easily. You combine those things and get-- a-ha!-- a TABLET WITH DISC DRIVE.

You quickly send the code for that to Killian. Time to get exploring!

 

>Killian: Do some alchemy.

 

You alchemize and captchalogue the TABLET WITH DISC DRIVE and pop the SBURB client disc into it. You put on the WIRELESS HOLO-HEADPHONES so that you can keep in touch with Carey without having to dig around in your bag. You also alchemize a whole bunch of grappling hooks, because you’re going to be doing some cave stuff and you don’t want to get stuck down there.

You previously combined a feather duster && a grappling hook, so now you have a FEATHER FALL DUSTER. You’re not entirely sure exactly what it does, but of course you’re going to use it if necessary.

 

>Killian: Do some rad exploring shit.

 

crossbowGoose [CG] began pestering camouflagedAzure [CA] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CG: I’m ready to roll.

CA: yeah!

CA: if you see anything really cool, tell me and look for the gps coordinates.

CG: Same goes for you.

CG: Let’s go!

CA: let’s go!

 

camouflagedAzure [CA] ceased pestering crossbowGoose [CG].

 

You attach one of the grappling hooks securely to your house, strap yourself onto your crossbow (which has the grappling hook on it) and sort of jump and rappel into the chasm. It looks really badass.

 

>Taako: Find something.

 

You find something. It’s tucked in a sort of glade of gigantic crystalline spikes, where the entire ground is carpeted in mint plants, a location fairly close to the edge of the sort of pond your house spawned in on. There’s some sort of portal in there.

 

>Taako: Go through it! 

 

Ordinarily you’d be pretty much good out here, but you were looking for cool things.

You decide to get a second opinion.

 

culinaryThaumaturge [CT] began pestering corporealCorvid [CC] at ??:?? ?M.

 

CT: sup, fake-british buckets man,

CC: Please d0n’t call me that.

CT: aight cool

CT: i need a second opinion on this and you seem relatively qualified

CT: this portal lookin’ thing: yay or nay?

CC: W0t

CT: uu says her penpal can see the future an’ stuff, but i don’t want to bug her penpal and also don’t have his chumhandle, an’ you seemed similarly ‘mysterious’ so

CT: like, look at the future with your

CT: iunno, british eyes,

CT: and tell me if that portal is chill or not

CC: Mate, uh,

CC: L00k, this is just weird, innit, mate,

CT: hey, slow down with your fake-ass british and tell me what’s on the other side of the portal

CC: It’s a science lab.

CC: 0ne 0f the 0ther 0nes is als0 there.

CC: L0ike, 0ne 0f y0ur friends.

CT: great

CC: It’s pretty imp0rtant.

CT: great

CC: Uh

CC: Anyway, bye.

 

corporealCorvid [CC] ceased trolling culinaryThaumaturge [CT].

 

>Taako: Go through it for real this time!

 

You step through the portal and it’s a science lab. There’s some test tubes with what looks like giant chess pieces in them.

You’re still getting a piggyback ride from Garylsprite, by the way. It seemed like a good idea.

 

>Lup: Find something.

 

Under a sort of smoothed-off overhang, a marginally cooler location despite the fire that’s almost right outside, you find something. It really sort of looks like a portal.

 

>Lup: Go through it!

 

This seems like a good idea. You hop through it. It leads to some sort of science lab.

There are large science tubes in the middle of the room. You’re okay at science; it’s more of your pen-pal’s thing, but you’re good at it.

Across the room, there’s another portal. Someone has just stepped out of it.

Oh hey, it’s Taako! He’s riding some sort of horse… sprite… thing? That’s pretty great.

 

This is going to obviously be a great reunion, so let’s not get to it at any point in this act. Instead, let’s catch up on someone else who’s in more trouble.

 

>Dream Merle: Get out of there!

 

You take a step back. The figure moves very quickly. You don’t see what happens, because your vision just goes black very, very suddenly.

 

>[Would be S] Merle: Wake up???

 

(Picture this set to parts of Descend from the Homestuck soundtrack and Reunion Tour from the TAZ soundtrack. Descend is pretty loud so you may have to turn it down and turn Reunion Tour up to get the proper effect.)

 

You’re… already awake? In the same sense that you were awake previously. Maybe less of such a sense, but still. You’re not in Prospit PJs anymore, just regular clothes, and you’re in some sort of void.

There’s something drifting in the distance that looks like a literal actual eldritch horror. You try to move further away from it, which is successful, but looking around it looks like this is just a place where eldritch horrors tend to be.

Well, that’s not preferable.

There’s something fairly close by that doesn’t look the same as most of the horrorterror things. For one thing, it’s smooth and round while most of the horrorterrors have lots of tentacles. For another thing, it has a faint blue tint and a sheen like a soap bubble.

Well, at bare minimum it’s probably better to go there than to wait around here until one of those things decides to kill you or something. Even if it is still a dream.

You make your way through the void as quickly as you can, which isn’t very fast. Still, you reach the edge of the bubble eventually-- and it is in fact a bubble. Just a really big bubble.

You can faintly see something inside the bubble. You don’t want to pop the bubble, but you do want to get to whatever’s in there. You put one finger up and poke the bubble.

Your hand goes directly through it without any bubble damage. Very carefully, you step through the surface of the bubble.

You’re standing on a tiny chunk of the hull of a boat and looking at a scene of an ocean. This ocean is much deeper and more turbulent than the one on your planet, and also, what looks like tar is raining down from the sky, with lightning bolts that also look like they’re made of tar.

Further along the edge of the bubble, the scene of the ocean gives way to a scene of pillars of red earth, frozen in a position of falling, tilted at wild angles. To the left of that scene, the bubble shows pieces of a chessboard in a similar state, also with tar raining down on them.

The rest of what you can see of the bubble is a smorgasbord of various other locations, some of them relatively peaceful (like the one that shows mirrors reflecting into each other indefinitely) and others in turmoil. Many of them, but not all of them, have that same mysterious tar-like substance raining down on them.

As you watch, though, the scene in the bubble changes abruptly and quickly. Now you’re standing on one of the solar panels of some sort of space station. The space station takes up most of the bubble, but there are areas by some of the edges where other situations play out or are frozen in time or space.

You walk up the solar panel very carefully. In the background, the edgelong scenes change. The entrance to some sort of cavern, carved of blue-green rock and with some symbol above it. A streak of violet falling across a background of blue. A section of the chessboard-patterned Battlefield shrinking away into nothing.

You reach the space station. There’s an airlock on the side of it which is open.

As you step into the airlock, all the scenes around the edges stop for an instant. Then all of those scenes and large sections of the space station’s external parts, such as the solar panels, change into one very large scene of a thick, tar-like substance with the texture of black opal, similarly patterned lightning playing across its surface.

You duck into the space station very quickly.

The halls in there are very still. There’s some scientific equipment, but it looks mostly disused and there’s not very much of it. There are doors off to the sides, but all of them are locked.

There are two doors near the end of the hall that are also locked, but they have the distinguishing feature of being labelled (to some extent). The one on the left has what looks like sketches of Skaia, musical notation, and writing pinned all over the outside, as well as a symbol in the middle of it that sort of looks like stylized wings with three parts on each side. It’s locked. The one on the right has what looks like transcripts of speeches and a very rough sketch of some sort of stringy, columned, lightning-esque substance, as well as a symbol in the middle of it that looks sort of like a face, if it were the face of someone without eyes but with a literally undefeatable eyebrow game and with a sort of mustache with a mouth hole in it. This door is also locked.

There’s a third door directly at the end of the hall. It’s not labelled, but it has a slightly different style than the other doors.

You open it. It opens on a room that you’re pretty sure isn’t actually in this space station-- a very large, cavernous room with sort of purple walls made of smooth stone, with pools of water around the edges and a large dining table that you’re fairly certain doesn’t actually belong in this room. There’s someone standing on the opposite end of the room. You can’t see their face because the lighting in this room is not very good, but something about this person is just a little bit unsettling.

 

>Merle: Say hello.

 

You very cautiously approach this person. They’re wearing some sort of suit and a cape which appears to be pinned up to a more manageable length.

 

MERLE: Hello? Uh, well met?

!!!: Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?

MERLE: Uh, my name is Merle. Nice to meet you?

!!!: Pleased to meet you, Merle, but I really must ask you--

 

The edges of the room collapse into oblivion. Or, not necessarily oblivion, but they’re gone. Around the edges, you can see that same black opal material that basically tanked your planet.

 

MERLE: Hey, I recognize that stuff!

MERLE: It was, like, attacking? I think it’s dangerous.

!!!: Attacking you?

!!!: Hmmm. Look, Merle, I don’t entirely understand how this bubble stuff all works, but I invite you to

!!!: GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!

 

That last line is not delivered in a caring way, so much as it is an almost angry way. The unsettling vibe he’s been giving off for the entire conversation has intensified by a truly ridiculous factor. The half of the room that you were in just explodes in a wave of black opal and it’s… not pleasant.

Then you wake up, and you’re back at your house on LOFAS, and your head sort of hurts.

 

A bright red curtain swings closed, because this sub-act is over.

A lot of stuff has happened here, in a relatively short amount of time. Why don’t we take a breather?

And by a breather, I mean why don’t we acquire even more plot threads and even more stuff to happen. Maybe even a truly iconic typing quirk or two.

 

That’s right, guys, it’s time to meet the trolls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, hmu at aquelondungeonmaster.tumblr.com to validate my content or give me characterization advice.  
> I realized that, since I haven't been formatting this on ao3, y'all have no idea what anyone's text colours are, so here's the list for the record. Also, I suppose it doubles as a list of the characters we've seen so far.:  
> Magnus - bright red text; Taako - pink text; Merle - dark green text; Killian - lime green text; Carey - light blue text; Lup - orange text.  
> carpeAstrum - teal text; augmentedCotton - burgundy text; corporealCorvid - jade text; arachnidAdoration - purple text; gatheringChronicles - cerulean text; ghostlyApplesauce - gold text; tongsandGavel - bronze text; chipsTonic - indigo text; ascendingTechnology - violet text; championGuillotiner - olive text.  
> ??? - light yellow text; !!! - dark gray text with a random selection of the letters in random, bright colours.  
> Stevensprite - maroon text; Garylsprite - dark purple text; Grampssprite - turquoise text; the remaining three sprites have not talked yet.


	6. Act IV Act II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to meet the trolls, now, isn't it? Be advised: there are a lot of them. Davenport plans for the future. Barry has a very good lusus. Kravitz meets some birds. Brian can magic missile. Lucretia takes notes. Noelle was not warned about the stairs. Julia does the thing it says on the tin. Robbie gets jailbroke? Lucas messes up. Jess doesn't need to axe for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixed a small but crucial typing-quirk plus coding based error, so shoutout to the person who pointed it out in the comments. Thanks.  
> Note: This error also affected a part of chapter three, so if you want to go back and read through the 'nine people are messaging you' part of chapter three again but with more of it, then you can do that now.

>Act IV Act II.

 

A young teal captain troll stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today, this captain and ten of his friends will play a game that purportedly could cause them to leave this planet. This is a serious responsibility, so this captain has chosen to take it very seriously, even if it is sort of a shitty planet. This captain is almost seven sweeps old, although his majestic mustache may suggest otherwise. He has a name; oh boy does he ever have a name. Damn.

What will this teal captain’s name be?

 

>Enter name.

 

DAVENPORT

 

Got it in one. So I guess we’re just rolling with no last names now and getting it the first time, that’s super chill and great.

 

Your name is DAVENPORT. As previously mentioned, you are going to take the SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY of PLAYING A GAME. You like SAILING BOATS and LEADERSHIP, and you’ve been joining QUASI-SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS because there aren’t very many LEGITIMATELY SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS on your planet. That is one of the reasons it’s a shitty planet. The other reason is because it’s can be a very BLOODY location. You INHERITED a love of FLIGHT from your LUSUS, who takes care of you. You are of the TEAL caste and you have VERY THIN HORNS. Your trolltag is carpeAstrum and you are qui7e serious even in si7ua7ions you find ama7ing.

What will you do?

 

>Davenport: Check name of planet.

 

That’s a really weird thing to do, since you live on that planet (for now, at least), but the name of the planet you’re on is ALTERNIA.

 

>Davenport: Select strife specibus.

 

You prefer to avoid actual conflict where necessary, but you have a WANDKIND strife specibus for emergencies.

 

>Davenport: Captchalogue pocket boats.

 

You own at least three POCKET BOATS, which your friends helped make for you. They’re not as good as an ACTUAL BOAT, but your hive itself is an ACTUAL BOAT, so it’s okay.

 

>Davenport: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You captchalogue the SGRUB DISCS. There’s a fairly long story behind them, but you’re somewhat less privy to it than some of your crew members. The code for the discs was carved into a wall somewhere, and your teammates translated it onto several sets of discs. You helped organize the efforts and helped with transportation.

 

>Davenport: Check up on lusus.

 

Your lusus is a FAIRLY LARGE BIRD. It has both BIRD OF PREY and SONGBIRD aspects. Look, BIRDS are very cool for reasons that are actually somewhat unrelated to this entire story. You call him SPINNAKER.

You give SPINNAKER a large ball of bird seed with an entire squeakbeast in the middle. He loves it.

SPINNAKER, along with most of the other lusii of your friend group, would eventually meet with an UNFORTUNATE FATE and be prototyped in your KERNELSPRITE.

Speaking of which, why don’t we have a small check up on what’s in your near future?

 

>Davenport: =====>

 

The HEIR OF BLOOD enters the LAND OF STARLIGHT AND OCEAN, a planet where the deep and choppy water reflects stars that are not actually in the sky, with the help of his server player.

Let’s check on that server player now, shall we?

 

Oh, you are going to love this.

 

> =====>

 

A young burgundy nerd boy stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today is the day this young nerd boy and his pen-pal will play different versions of the same game, which is believed to be able to cause them to leave their respective planets, alongside their respective friend groups. Although this nerd boy certainly has a name, and some people maybe do know it full well, it is one hell of a name and so we have not been presented with it at this point in the story.

What will the name of this young burgundy nerd boy be?

 

>Enter name.

 

[X] SILDAR HALLWINTER

 

See, here’s a perfectly reasonable name to name your-- okay, it rejected it. Okay. Is there any consistency in this at all?

 

>Try again.

 

BARRY BLUEJEANS

 

That’s a really silly n-- that’s his name, then. His name is Barry Bluejeans. That’s what’s happening.

 

Your name is BAROLD J. “BARRY” BLUEJEANS. As previously mentioned, you and your PEN-PAL are playing different versions of A GAME THAT LETS YOU BASICALLY GO TO SPACE. You have a WEIRD INTEREST IN DEAD THINGS and what your PEN-PAL lovingly describes as NERD SHIT. You can really SEE the advantages of being REALLY FUCKING DRAMATIC at UNNECESSARY MOMENTS, and you can play the PIANO. You LOVE THINGS EASILY AND DEEPLY, and maybe the third highest item on the list of things you love is your BLUE JEANS, especially the ARMPIT-HEIGHT ONES. Gosh, you couldn’t live without them. You have some sickass PSYCHIC POWERS, which are fairly common among trolls. They let you SPEAK TO DEAD PEOPLE, LEVITATE OBJECTS, and sometimes BLAST RED LIGHTNING AT THINGS, although that last one takes up QUITE A BIT OF ENERGY. If you try REALLY HARD and drain EVEN MORE OF YOUR ENERGY, you can sometimes even do the MIND CONTROL thing, which is pretty powerful and usually the sort of ability used by HIGHER-CLASS TROLLS THAN YOU. You really should be starting the game any TIME now. You are of the BURGUNDY caste and your horns RESEMBLE A THICKER VERSION OF ANTENNAE. Your trolltag is augmentedCotton and you tend to &e ]ust a &it, uh, stuttery sometimes, &ut your friends still en]oy listening to you.

What will you do?

 

>Barry: Select strife specibus.

 

Your PSYCHIC POWERS are several times more useful than a conventional strife specibus, so you’ve set your strife specibus to MISCKIND. Currently, the only thing in it is ONE (1) MUNDANE JINGLE BELL.

 

>Barry: Captchalogue piano.

 

The PIANO is much too big to captchalogue, but you grab your KEYTAR. It can’t hurt to have a musical instrument, you guess.

 

>Barry: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You captchalogue the two game discs. You helped a lot with the translation of the code of these, but even still they hide many mysteries from you. Such as how any of this is particularly possible.

 

>Barry: Check on pen-pal.

 

The chat client you’re using, Trollian, is fairly new, but it’s also pretty great, so you got it pretty much right away. You’ve been too busy to make use of its features properly, though.

You’ve been talking to your pen-pal a lot all day, because it is the big day, but you should check up on her again.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] began trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU] at 3:01 PM.

 

AC: The game should &e starting, uh, soon, I think. I’m not entirely sure, &ut I’ve got the discs, um, and I don’t think there’s, um, anything else I have to do first.

UU: Oh, hey again!

UU: I just got the discs a couple minutes ago, but I put them in the garage for safekeeping.

AC: Great!

AC: Should you, uh, may&e get them out of the garage soon?

AC: Like, um, future me said something a&out how our setups were synced up so that the sessions would start ]ust a&out simultaneously, right?

AC: And I’m going to &e ]oining my session real soon.

UU: Eh, don’t worry ‘bout it, babe.

UU: I’ll just launch it, like, last.

UU: Don’t worry about me, I’ve got this.

AC: Um, you sure?

AC: This game is &asically, um, infested with monsters of varying difficulty.

AC: &oth versions!

UU: Look, babe, I know that. It’s real dangerous, yeah, but I can handle that sort of stuff.

UU: Plus, I’m probably the most ready for it person here, because you’ve been giving me nerd advice all day.

AC: Well, that’s true. ]ust stay safe, okay?

UU: Aight.

UU: Also, if I enter last then I don’t have to deal with the monsters as early, right? Win-win!

AC: That’s not the only thing SGRU& throws at you, &ut okay.

UU: Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a really rad umbrella.

UU: If you have any more nerd shit to tell me, just hit me up.

AC: Uh, did I already tell you a&out the leaving the planet part?

UU: Like, every time. But it’s cool, that is an important detail.

UU: I did this one already, though, and I sort of crushed it, so that’s a rad opportunity.

AC: Pfft, okay.

UU: See ya, babe! ;)

AC: See you.

 

augmentedCotton [AC] ceased trolling umbraUnquenchable [UU].

 

>Barry: Check up on lusus.

 

Oh, you’d prefer not to. He’s not dangerous, just very embarrassing to be around.

Let’s go directly to sometime in your near future rather than think about this incredibly embarrassing lusus for a moment longer.

 

>Barry: =====>

 

The SEER OF TIME enters the LAND OF WONDER AND BURIAL, a planet where the dazzling neon lights hide an underground full of creepy catacombs, with the help of his server player.

Shall we check on that server player? Of course we shall.

 

> =====>

 

A young jade bounty hunter stands in his respiteblock. Today, this young bounty hunter is going to play some sort of really weird game with his friends. Although he has his reservations vis a vis the game’s trustworthiness, he has agreed to join in. This bounty hunter certainly has a name, which can be found out in an extremely iconic manner if you’re into that sort of stuff, or in a significantly more normal manner if you don’t have an umbrella that creates tentacles.

What will the name of this young jade bounty hunter be?

 

>Enter name.

 

KRAVITZ

 

Again, no last name. Whatever. Yep, that is his name.

 

Your name is KRAVITZ. As previously mentioned, you are about to play A GAME WHICH YOU DO NOT TRUST. You are a sort of BOUNTY HUNTER, in that you arrest or otherwise take care of people who break THE RULES, but the rules on Alternia are sort of NOT VERY GOOD, so when you have any leeway to, you mostly focus on ARRESTING PEOPLE WHO CHEAT DEATH and sometimes HUNTING THE UNDEAD that haunt Alternia’s deserts in the daylight. It’s not very lucrative, but you are a staunch supporter of people meeting their rightful DOOM when the time comes. You are somewhat MUSICALLY INCLINED, and have had wishes to be a CONDUCTOR of both music and trains in the past. You like ACCENTS and PROFESSIONAL SUITS and you have MADE several of both. You are of the JADE caste and you have CURLY RAM-STYLE HORNS. Your trolltag is corporealCorvid and your British accent, l0ike s0, is definitely y0ur n0rmal v0ice, innit, mate.

What will you do?

 

>Kravitz: Select strife specibus.

 

You use a SCYTHEKIND strife specibus. They might not be too easy to wield properly, but really. It’s a scythe. It’s incredible and can easily scare the shit out of people who are pushing the boundaries of death.

It’s not quite the most effective measure against THE UNDEAD, but you’ve made it work.

 

>Kravitz: Captchalogue “Bounty Notes”.

 

You’ve spent a lot of time chronicling these with the help of your lusus, who was equally enthusiastic about all this. It features notes about people who people have specifically hired you to track down even though you told them that wasn’t what you did, dozens of notes on people who definitely should be dead but aren’t, and a huge almanac of detail about the UNDEAD of Alternia’s sands and how to most effectively fight them.

 

>Kravitz: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You cram the two game discs into your sylladex.

 

>Kravitz: Check up on lusus.

 

Your lusus, BIRDMOM, is a REALLY BIG RAVEN. She’s very protective and absolutely adores you.

She would wind up being prototyped in your sprite before she could wind up dead, because you would not be able to stand for anything less. It would still be a very close thing, though; close both to her risk of demise and close to your point of entry.

Speaking of your entry, let’s see how that would shake out.

 

>Kravitz: =====>

 

The MAID OF DOOM enter the LAND OF CROWS AND FOG, a very quiet planet whose titular corvids are rarely seen except through other evidence, due to the very low visibility and seeming oceans of mist, with some assistance from his server player.

This system seems to be working so far, so now let’s check out what that server player is doing.

 

> =====>

 

A young purple spider boy stands in his respiteblock. This young spider boy has pushed his way into the group of friends who are about to play some sort of game that does something cool, apparently, and he’s definitely going to get a piece of that. He’s, like, ninety-nine percent sure he’s emotionally ready for that. This young spider boy has a name, of course, and whether he’s willing to share it or not is somewhat up to consideration. But maybe if you guess right, he’ll tell you.

What will the name of this young purple spider boy be?

 

>Enter name.

 

[X] BLACK SPIDER

 

Okay, great, cool, but that’s literally not a name. That’s a title. Please try again.

 

>Try again.

 

MAGIC BRIAN

 

What the hell sort of name is that? Well, a correct one, I suppose. Names in this are basically just a free-for-all, and I think this has really begun to capture that wildness.

 

Your name is MAGIC BRIAN. As previously mentioned you are going to play some sort of cool game that you are very READY FOR. You have a variety of interests. You like SPIDERS, doing MAGIC, and basically STABBING THINGS but with your MILD PSYCHIC POWERS, which pretty much just let you STAB THINGS. You are a bit of a ROMANTIC, and you tend to have a LIGHT-hearted, ROGUISH demeanor. You are of the PURPLE caste and you have horns that SORT OF LOOK LIKE SPIDER LEGS. Your trolltag is arachnidAdoration and you hǎve ǎ væry clëar ǎccënt.

What will you do?

 

>Brian: Select strife specibus.

 

Your strife specibus is STAFFKIND. You know you’re not the only one in your group to have a STAFFKIND strife specibus, but honestly it’s really useful, especially in conjunction with your PSYCHIC STABS.

 

>Brian: Captchalogue game discs.

 

These things are very cool. You don’t entirely know how they work, but you know that that is something you want to participate in. You captchalogue the game discs.

 

>Brian: Check up on lusus.

 

Your lusus, named SPIDER BRYAN, is unsurprisingly a GIANT SPIDER. You’ve heard that many spider lusii can be pretty nasty, but yours is much less… child-hungry than many of them are. You give him big roll of wild beast meat, and he sort of puts a leg on you in a somewhat caring way.

SPIDER BRYAN would eventually be plowed off of a cliff by a big chunk of machinery pre-entry and prototyped into your sprite.

Speaking of your entry, let’s take a look into your coming future.

 

>Brian: =====>

 

The ROGUE OF LIGHT enters the LAND OF MINES AND WEBBING, a land dominated by squarey, artificial cave systems and clogged with clouds of cobwebs, with plenty of help from his server player.

Shall we go meet his server player now?

 

> =====>

 

A young cobalt chronicler stands in her respiteblock. It just so happens that today is the day selected for the beginning of a very important mission to play a very important game. Although this young journalist will not be likely to play a very important role in this game, she is still very excited to record the tales of her friends’ adventures as heroes. This chronicler does in fact have a name, even if she is inclined to quietly go by pen names and dramatic aliases, and perhaps she will even subtly acknowledge it if you guess correctly.

What will the name of this young cobalt chronicler be?

 

>Enter name.

 

MADAM DIRECTOR

 

Wh- that’s… that’s not a name. That’s a title. Again. Please try again, and supply an actual name that isn’t a title.

 

>Try again.

 

LUCRETIA

 

And see, that both is a name and is her name. Sweet catch.

 

Your name is LUCRETIA. As previously mentioned, you are going to RECORD THE ADVENTURES OF YOUR FRIENDS in an incredibly important GAME FOR THE FATE OF REALITY. Well, you’re not entirely sure about the ‘fate of reality’ part, but it sounds good and that’s what’s important. You have a variety of interests. You have almost BARDIC skills at WRITING and PAINTING, and you are NOTORIOUSLY AMBIDEXTROUS. You’re pretty sure you could definitely PROTECT PEOPLE if it were necessary by WARDING OFF ANYTHING, even if it were in a CRISIS SITUATION with DIFFICULT CHOICES. You’re a bit of a dramatic at HEART, mostly in the sense of STORYTELLING, and although you’ve never heard anything about your ANCESTOR that hasn’t stopped you from coming up with stories about her. You are of the COBALT caste and your horns are STAFFLIKE in form. Your trolltag is gatheringChronicles and you speak ser1ously but w1th a somet1mes very baller vernacular.

What will you do?

 

>Lucretia: Select strife specibus.

 

You also use a STAFFKIND strife specibus. It currently has your WHITE OAK STAFF in it, which is a pretty powerful item.

 

>Lucretia: Captchalogue journals.

 

You have a whole bunch of journals, too many to properly fit in your sylladex. You captchalogue the one you’re working on right now, which is about half-filled, as well as a handful of empty ones.

 

>Lucretia: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You pick up the game discs and put them into your sylladex. This is about to happen and you want to be there for it.

 

>Lucretia: Check up on lusus.

 

Your lusus, whom you have dubbed DIRECTOR THE SECOND, is a CRANE (THE BIRD KIND). She’s very elegant and decisive, and basically ignores you when you enter the room. She doesn’t actually feed off of information, (she eats fish) but she does tend to wreck your books when you leave them too close to her.

DIRECTOR THE SECOND would meet her end very suddenly before your entry, and be prototyped into your sprite in a hurry.

Oh yeah, your entry. Shall we check that shit out? Of course we shall.

 

>Lucretia: =====>

 

The BARD OF HEART enters the LAND OF STORY AND MOONLIGHT, a planet with a silvery glow to it that orbits closer to and farther away from Skaia to a degree that most other planets don’t, its surface decorated with many smooth dome-shaped structures, some of them in ruins. Her server player proves invaluable in this endeavour.

As always, we’re going to go find out what her server player is like now.

 

> =====>

 

A young golden robot stands in her respiteblock. This robit has requested to join some of her friends and also her boss in playing a mysterious game, although her understanding of it is limited. This robot does in fact have a name, unlike some robots that probably don’t have names, and it might actually be written on the robot’s metal form (which, for the record, is not actually made of gold) somewhere.

What will the name of this young golden robot be?

 

>Enter name.

 

[?] No.3113

 

Alright, well, that is a name, and it is in fact her name, but the jury’s still out on whether it’s an eligible name or not. Shall we try doing a round two of this?

 

>Try again.

 

NOELLE REDCHEEK

 

And there you go. That is her name in a more accurately rendered manner.

 

Your name is NOELLE REDCHEEK, otherwise known as NO3113. As previously mentioned, you are a ROBOT and are about to play a MYSTERIOUS GAME WITH YOUR FRIENDS. You are of a HELPFUL disposition, and have MILD HEALING CAPABILITIES thanks to some SCIENCE that your BOSS did. You have limited combat capabilities so you would prefer to AVOID conflict. You’re pretty good at making ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES, even though, if there were a drinking age on Alternia, basically everyone on Alternia would be under it. You live in the back half of your boss’s LABORATORY, because you are a robot and also if you have another hive it’s probably not intact. You are probably of the GOLD or MUSTARD caste (but a robot) and your horns are SHORT AND SQUAREY. Your trolltag is ghostlyApplesauce and you hav3 a 1itt1e bit of a south3rn acc3nt.

What will you do?

 

>Noelle: Select strife specibus.

 

You don’t like to fight and aren’t very good at it, but you got a strife specibus a while back and accidentally set it to RIFLEKIND. You can’t change it, but you haven’t put anything in it.

 

>Noelle: Captchalogue tub of applesauce.

 

You captchalogue both tubs of applesauce. One of them is legitimately sauce made of apples, and the other one is a very alcoholic cider, and you’re not entirely sure which is which, so you captchalogue both of them.

 

>Noelle: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You captchalogue the game discs. You sort of hoped there would be some way for you to just play the game with your body using your robot computer brain, but that’s not something you can do, unfortunately.

 

>Noelle: Check on lusus.

 

You’re a robot. You don’t have a lusus.

Prior to your entry, you would wind up prototyping a miscellany of other robot parts from not-yet-active robots into your sprite. It would wind up making your session a little bit more complex when robo-cannons got involved, but the prototyping of something not alive would open the way for you to start realizing things that are stunning revelations fit to blow us all away.

Before we reveal any of those oh-so-stunning revelations, let’s see what your entry would wind up resulting in more directly.

 

>Noelle: =====>

 

The SYLPH OF VOID enters the LAND OF CIDER AND SILENCE, a very quiet planet of faintly, coldly glowing seas and warmly glowing but rather empty taverns, with plenty of assistance from her server player.

Well, the system has worked thus far, so do you guys want to find out who her server player is? Of course you do. Let’s go.

 

> =====>

 

A young bronze craftswoman stands in her respiteblock. It just so happens that this young craftswoman is also about to play a game which does some important stuff, including enabling travel to different planets. This craftswoman has a name, of course, and if you were to ask she’d absolutely tell you.

What will the name of this young bronze craftswoman be?

 

>Enter name.

 

JULIA WAXMEN

 

Got it in one. Wow, no weird bullshit this time? We are all completely blown away by the lack of weird name bullshit that just happened.

 

Your name is JULIA WAXMEN. As previously mentioned, you are going to play a COOL GAME. You have a variety of interests. You’re amazing at WOODWORKING and METALWORKING, and pretty good at FIGHTING. Your living SPACE is, in fact, decorated with the crafts you have made. Alternia’s government system is pretty tyrannical, and you are trying your best to REBEL against it. It’s not going well, but you feel that you have to AT LEAST TRY to STAND UP for people and be a DEFENDER of the general populace. You are of the BRONZE caste and your horns are T-SHAPED. Your trolltag is tongsandGavel and you have a helpful and somewha+ +ac+|cal manner when necessary.

What will you do?

 

>Julia: Select strife specibus.

 

You’re trying to get more strife specibi, because the one you have right now is not nearly enough to cover all the weapon types that could come in useful. Currently, though, the strife specibus you have is HAMMERKIND. You’ve got a variety of hammers stashed in it, some of a blacksmithing persuasion, some of a nailing together furniture persuasion, and some more of a fighting persuasion.

 

>Julia: Captchalogue pile of chairs.

 

You never know when you might need a pile of half-finished chairs! Hint: it’s approximately never, except for when you want to continue working on one of them.

 

>Julia: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You captchalogue the SGRUB GAME DISCS. At bare minimum, what happens through them should be safer than just staying on Alternia, right?

…Right? 

 

>Julia: Check up on lusus.

 

Your lusus, DOGDAD, is just a REALLY BIG FLUFFY DOG. He’s great. You give DOGDAD a treat and he licks your face.

Shortly prior to your entry, DOGDAD would wind up trapped in a room of your house that collapsed. You would, fortunately, be able to afterwards get into the collapsed room and prototype him into your sprite.

While we’re on the topic of your entry into the game, let’s see what that is like, of course.

 

>Julia: =====>

 

The KNIGHT OF SPACE makes her entry into the LAND OF BLACKSMITHING AND JELLIES, a planet with rivulets of lava in some locations and the tools needed for various crafts all over the place. Dozens of seemingly air-breathing jellyfish are trapped in locked boxes or under solid stone or metal.

There’s an oddity here, isn’t there? She may not know it yet, but the lands of space players are frequently home to something crucial to the game, which is not in this planet. As she will later discover, there is a reason behind this, albeit admittedly a somewhat bizarre one.

Instead of getting into the why now, let’s get over to her server player and see what’s up with them.

 

> =====>

 

A young indigo alchemist stands in his respiteblock, which is a mess. It just so happens that this alchemist is going to participate in some sort of game which he’s pretty sure is cool, although he’s slightly too stoned on dank potions to tell you more about it. This young alchemist has a name, and it’s likely he will tell you once he finishes doing… whatever he’s doing.

What will the name of this young indigo alchemist be?

 

>Enter name.

 

[X] ROBBIE

 

And there you-- what? That name suggestion just got rejected? It’s a reasonable name, but okay. Let’s give this a second shot. That usually works.

 

>Try again.

 

[X] PRINGLES

 

While neither of these mediums have much regard for whether something might be copyrighted, that is in fact a brand name. But it’ll d-- hey wait, it also got rejected! That’s not how this works and we both know it, but alright, fine, alright, this is apparently happening.

 

>Try again again.

 

ROBBIE

 

Wh-what? That’s just the first name suggestion again but not rejected this time. This system is so literally broken, what even… okay then.

 

Your name is ROBBIE, or possibly PRINGLES depending on who you ask. As previously mentioned, you are going to play a GAME and your friends can DEAL WITH THAT. Your room is a colossal MESS. You have CDs everywhere, as well as VERY DANK POTIONS that you are brewing yourself and the EQUIPMENT TO BREW THEM, and lots of JUNK FOOD WRAPPERS, including of your junk food of choice, which is of course THE ONE LISTED IN YOUR NICKNAME. You are of the INDIGO caste and your horns SORT OF GO ALL OVER THE PLACE, which you have taken advantage of to stash a single, half-eaten can of PRINGLES in them. Your trolltag is chipsTonic and you are usually a bit stonedd, so your phrases sort of trail offffff.

What will you do?

 

>Robbie: Select strife specibus.

 

You have a CONCOCTIONKIND strife specibus. The only really useful thing you can put into it is MOLOTOV COCKTAILS, but you’re also good at making those, so you can do that.

 

>Robbie: Captchalogue junk food.

 

You captchalogue a small portion of the mess in your room, specifically a bunch of the junk food that’s relatively uneaten. Nice.

 

>Robbie: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You stuff the two game discs into your inventory. This should be a fun and overall non-awful experience.

 

>Robbie: Check on lusus.

 

Your lusus is CATLIKE, or rather a sort of MEOWBEAST. As far as you can tell, this is basically JUST BECAUSE. Despite the ordinarily carnivorous predilection of MEOWBEASTS, this one does in fact enjoy your junk food.

Your lusus, much like all the other lusii, would be prototyped into your sprite after its demise but prior to entry into the Medium.

And there’s the keyword, so it’s time to look into the Medium.

 

>Robbie: =====>

 

The WITCH OF BREATH enters the LAND OF ALCHEMY AND JAILS, a turbulent land that will in fact try its hardest to confine him, with quite a bit of help from his server player.

That’s, again, our cue, so let’s go find out what his server player is like.

 

> =====>

 

A young violet scientist stands in his respiteblock. Today, this scientist will play a game that he has been looking forward to for all it can tell him about the universe and what lies beyond it. This scientist has a name, and there isn’t actually any real nomenclative bullcrap built into that part of his identity, which is stellar and should probably result in a lack of bullcrap nomenclature.

What will the name of this young violet scientist be?

 

>Enter name.

 

[X] NERDLORD

 

Dammit. Okay, maybe there will be some bullcrap nomenclature. See, this is more… classic bullcrap, and less whatever that was last time, so I guess it’s okay. More along the lines of “ZOOSMELL POOPLORD”, which is either a step up or a step down depending on who you ask.

Let’s try again and take this seriously.

 

>Try again.

 

LUCAS MILLER

 

And there we go!

 

Your name is LUCAS MILLER. As previously mentioned, you are about to play a game about WHAT’S BIGGER THAN THE UNIVERSE. That sort of thing-- HIERARCHIES-- is one of many things you’re interested in. You like lots of SCIENTIFIC THINGS, into which MAGIC is, if it’s real, probably very intertwined with, and have made COOL ROBOTS, although most of them have to stay out of the UNDERWATER PORTIONS of your lab because, unlike you, they don’t have any means of breathing underwater, which you have to keep in MIND. Your ETHICS SYSTEM is DUBIOUS AT BEST. You are of the VIOLET caste and your horns are SORT OF CURVED OUTWARDS. Your trolltag is ascendingTechnologies and you hav> a v>ery st>r>otypically ^>rdy-sou^di^g voic>. What will you do? >Lucas: Select strife specibus.

 

You have two strife specibi, but only one of them currently has anything in it. Your SCIENCEKIND strife specibus, into which you stuffed a bunch of your scientific instruments and crap, is the only usable one, but not nearly as effective or cool-sounding as the one you prefer, which is MECHKIND. Unfortunately, you have been unable to build a functional mech thus far, so the SCIENCEKIND specibus has to be the way to go.

 

>Lucas: Captchalogue space notes.

 

You’ve copied down notes from a bunch of books on the known universe. It took a lot of effort, not only to find the books, but also to keep them dry, and also to keep your notes dry because you live underwater.

 

>Lucas: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You stick the game discs into your sylladex.

 

>Lucas: Check on lusus.

 

Your lusus is called MAUREEN and she’s pretty cool. She’s a gigantic TARDIGRADE and thus effectively unkillable. She is also very intelligent, which admittedly is not a common TARDIGRADE trait, and she likely wouldn’t do anything too stupid of her own accord.

TARDIGRADES are like not killable, guys, there’s absolutely no way anything could go wrong prior to your entry.

Rather than speculate on this, let’s go check out what happens immediately after your entry.

 

>Lucas: =====>

 

The MAGE OF MIND enters the LAND OF MIRRORS AND ELEVATORS, a planet defined by basically exactly that. The multicoloured mirrors that rise up in it reflect into each other and reflect scenes from nowhere near them, including the scenes in Skaia’s clouds. The elevators are literally elevators. Why are there so many of them. What’s their thematic relevance. No one knows, and especially not his server player, who by this point is basically done with his bullcrap.

Let’s go see what his server player is like, though, now.

 

> =====>

 

A young olive gladiator stands in her respiteblock. As one might expect from the other nine players, today this young gladiator is going to play a game with her friends, but only after she finishes her daily exercises of hunting down and summarily kicking the asses of some wild beasts. This gladiator does in fact have a name, and while she would ordinarily be reluctant to share it, she is trying to make a name for herself in the world.

What will the name of this young olive gladiator be?

 

>Enter name.

 

JESS THE BEHEADER

 

Welp. And that is a fact, it seems. This sort of title-as-part-of-name is not exactly common on Alternia, but what are you going to do?

 

Your name is JESS (THE BEHEADER). As previously mentioned, you are going to play a GAME which MIGHT HAVE SOME FIGHTING IN IT, but first you’re going to do some REGULAR FIGHTING, just to keep in TOP SHAPE, because that’s definitely far more important. That’s excellent, because you are GREAT AT FIGHTING. You’ve spent a lot of time doing exactly that, especially in various GLADIATORIAL ARENAS across Alternia, which is where you acquired your REPUTATION VIS A VIS SEVERED HEADS and became sort of the CHAMPION. It’s still at least fifty percent FOR SHOW, though, which is why you’re COOL WITH NOT HAVING TO CONTINUE DOING THAT for your entire LIFE. You are of the OLIVE caste and your horns are SORT OF ALSO AXE SHAPED, IT’S WEIRD. Your trolltag is championGuillotiner and you #ave a tendency to be s/ight/y grouc#y.

What will you do?

 

>Jess: Select strife specibus.

 

It’s AXEKIND. DUH. You only have one thing in your strife specibus, and it’s your SOULBOUND AXE. You’re not entirely sure how it got SOULBOUND, but it can basically teleport to you, which is great.

 

>Jess: Captchalogue wrestling championship belt.

 

Ah yes. You won this after kicking a bunch of people’s asses at GLADIATORIAL COMBAT. You tried to minimize the death count A LITTLE BIT, but it’s pretty hard to NON-LETHALLY DECAPITATE SOMEONE. Most trolls don’t really care about the death count or in fact are of the opinion that THE BLOODIER THE BETTER, but it just seems a bit WASTEFUL sometimes. You don’t go easy on your foes, though. It’s all about SHOW BUSINESS.

 

>Jess: Captchalogue game discs.

 

You stuff the game discs into the back of your sylladex. They’ll be useful when they’re useful.

 

>Jess: Check up on lusus.

 

CRAB lusii are generally more the lot of, shall we say, rarer, more likely-to-be-dead blood types, but your FIRE CRAB LUSUS is still pretty cool. It sets things on fire, and it likes to fight. Mostly against you.

You spar with it for a couple hits and then youth roll out of the room. Its training is important but you don’t have time for this today.

You would wind up having to kill it prior to your entry, and prototyping it in your sprite due to a combination of guilt and needing something to prototype your sprite with. The addition of a FIRE CRAB to the session may have had consequences in the form of fire, but you were very literally running out of time very quickly, due to circumstances somewhat unrelated to your personal situation.

Let’s see what your land would wind up being like, now that we’ve covered everything else.

 

>Jess: =====>

 

The PRINCE OF LIFE enters the LAND OF ARENAS AND MOMENTUM, a very dramatic, very dynamic planet with various coliseums, wrestling rings, and sports centers scattered across its surface and constantly shifting and tilting above and below each other or toppling over smoothly.

Her server player, completing the chain of entry, is Davenport, whom we’ve already seen. So rather than continue to goof around outside of the Medium, let’s see what happens whilst some of the group enters the Medium.

Let’s say, ah, the first eight of them, after which there was a fairly long break before the last two had to enter.

 

>[Would be S] Trolls (except Lucas and Jess): Enter.

 

(Picture this scene set to a combination of Umbral Ultimatum from the Homestuck soundtrack and Wonderland Round One from the TAZ soundtrack. It’s not as much of a hella combo as some of them, but eh, it works.)

 

We see Davenport just outside his hive, which has a meteor bearing rapidly down on it. SPINNAKERSPRITE floats back and forth.

That scene zooms out quickly, and we see the scene we saw in one of the previous acts, with a hand silhouetted against the screen and clicking the mouse, placing down the pre-punched card decisively We zoom out further and see that Barry is the one at the computer right now, and we watch along with him as Davenport’s hive is surrounded by teal light.

We see Davenport doing something cool with illusions, popping in and out of the sight of a crowd of winged imps, reappearing where they least expect it and blasting them forwards before absconding quickly on his POCKET BOAT.

We see a sort of slideshow of the other trolls entering: Barry’s somewhat tiny hive; Kravitz at the edge of the desert; Magic Brian’s hive perched on a tall, now somewhat crumbling pillar of rock; Lucretia, who lives near the edge of a city. Noelle is standing on top of a laboratory half-submerged in the ocean like an iceberg while, rather than an inbound meteor, the lab is rapidly sinking deeper underwater. The top half of it vanishes in a ray of mustard-tinted light, which gets Noelle out of there. Julia’s hive is in, like, the middle of a city until it also enters. Robbie lives in a different sort of subgrub with a different architectural style and a bluer, cooler-toned lighting scheme, and by the time he enters, there is no fewer than seven large meteors and a truly ridiculous quantity of small ones pelting down on the subgrub.

We see Lucas trying to boot up the game and an error message, reading “Server player not found!”, appearing on the screen. We see Jess in the woods, handily beating up some wild monsters, having apparently used some sort of hoverboard to get there quickly, as it’s floating close by.

A small meteor hits just close enough to her to severely damage the hoverboard. She pokes at it a couple times, but it seems to be inoperable. We zoom and tilt up into a bird’s-eye view showing the distance from Jess’s current location to her hive, which is way over in a more urban area, and the dotted line shows quite a distance.

We see Jess again and ‘FACEPALM x1 COMBO’ appears above her doing exactly that.

We see the group that’s already in the Medium now. Barry, barely holding his own against an ogre and possibly in too deep, holds up a hand that crackles with an explosion of red lightning and smashes it into a pile of grist, then sits down to catch his breath. Smash cut to Kravitz, effortlessly cutting through imps with his SCYTHE. While they’re going down, he points it at one of them and it just explodes instantly; he doesn’t seem to notice this. On his planet, Brian points a finger at a trio of imps and three bolts of violet light each select an imp and pierce clean through it.

Lucretia is building up Brian’s hive with one hand and scrawling down notes with the other. An imp bursts into the room, and she looks up, gets out her WHITE OAK STAFF, and makes a burst of force slowly push it back through the door and block the doorway. Then she goes back to her work.

Noelle is trying her hardest to avoid combat. We see her in the middle of alchemizing something, and she quickly looks up and then ducks behind a wall. A lizard-shaped monster walks right past her without even noticing.

We see Julia exploring her planet, hammer in hand, in the middle of an intense STRIFE. She does some sort of semi-sweet flip (not to be confused with a regular sweet flip, which is trademark material) and just crushes a different lizard-like monster, which we see is in this case a COPPER SALAMANDER. A graceful transition off of her planet and onto the adjacent one shows us Robbie flinging a MOLOTOV COCKTAIL into a pile of imps and blowing up about half of them.

We see a full-session timelapse view of these hives getting taller.

We see a slideshow of the sprites and what effects their prototyping has granted-- SPINNAKERSPRITE and the strong wings and small feathers that the monsters get from it; Robbie’s MEOWBEASTSPRITE and the sort of cat faces on the monsters; DOGDADSPRITE and dog ears; ROBOTSPRITE and a variety of cyborg effects, including laser cannons that we see blasting a hole through a wall; DIRECTORTHESECONDSPRITE and long, jabbing crane-like beaks; BRYANSPRITE, whose influence seems to be spidery faces and sometimes additional limbs; BIRDMOMSPRITE’s wide wings and sharp eyes (leading some of the monsters to have two or even three pairs of wings).

We cut over to what we will have to assume is Barry’s sprite and lusus. We pan up slowly from below the sprite’s location, and see that while sprites are disinclined to have legs, this sprite is still wearing jeans. We continue to pan up and see stripes on the sprite formed by outward curves and that it’s sort of a bee. A little label appears reading ‘BENSONSPRITE’. We see Barry FACEPALM x2 COMBO.

A blue curtain swishes closed over this scene, because it got pretty long and all the other stuff is best done outside of this scene.

 

>Julia: Do the thing it says on the tin.

 

You handily beat up another COPPER SALAMANDER and a few more WOOD IMPS, but then the last un-defeated imp knocks your hammer out of your hands. It’s one of the ones that’s been prototyped with robot parts, mostly.

You figure that your hammer is too far away to get quickly, so you DO THE THING IT SAYS ON THE TIN, which is to say, you RETRIEVE THE ROBOT’S ARMS.

Finally, someone actually does that.

 

>Lucretia: Chronicle adventures.

 

You’ve been taking notes on everyone’s adventures thus far. But some of your friends have been getting through things quite quickly, and as a result you have managed to convince Kravitz to let you accompany him while he goes to visit his Denizen.

You have a big thing of notes, which will probably be several times more useful than just description.

 

St1ll ??:?? ?M; Krav1tz’s Den1zen.

Den1zens, from what 1’ve heard from the spr1tes, are effect1vely the f1nal bosses of your land quests. They could be cons1dered the dragon battle of your journey.

Conversely, some remarks the spr1tes made seemed to 1mply that f1ght1ng your Den1zen was not mandatory. 1 w1ll have to look 1nto that.

1 had to alchem1ze a jetpack to get to the Land Of Crows And Fog, but 1t was a very sh1tty jetpack and resulted 1n a stressful tr1p. 1 would not recommend.

1’m wr1t1ng th1s wh1le we make our way down 1nto LOCAF’s core, wh1ch 1s accessed 1n the depths of a sea of m1st. S1nce 1’m wr1t1ng th1s wh1le walk1ng, 1 w1ll need to make the backup copy later. V1s1b1l1ty 1s pretty sh1t down here, but 1 can handle 1t. There are lots of monsters of t1ers rang1ng from 1mps to what 1 can only assume 1s some representat1ve of the Den1zen.

Goddamn do they love corv1ds around here.

1 bel1eve 1t was stated that Krav1tz’s classpect 1s the Ma1d of Doom. 1 have tr1ed to look further 1nto that, but thus far have had no success v1s a v1s what classpects enta1l. However, 1 th1nk that may be relevant to the s1tuat1on at hand because 1’m pretty sure Krav1tz just 1nstantly k1lled one of the monsters w1thout touch1ng 1t.

Okay, we’re almost at the Den1zen’s la1r, 1 th1nk. 1’m go1ng to keep chron1cl1ng.

1 don’t know h1s Den1zen’s name yet, but the room we’re 1n 1s so dramat1c and honestly, 1t’s gorgeous. Black marble columns all over the place. Krav1tz seems even more 1mpressed by 1t all.

Okay, h1s Den1zen 1s here now. 1t’s another g1ant corv1d, l1ke Krav1tz’s lusus but much b1gger.

1 can’t understand any of the words 1t’s say1ng-- 1t’s just un1ntell1g1ble no1se, but Krav1tz 1s sort of nodd1ng along and look1ng confused.

He looks less l1ke he’s go1ng to f1ght th1s Den1zen. That has to have some connect1on w1th what h1s Den1zen 1s say1ng. 1 w1ll need to get a record of 1t afterwards.

The conversat1on 1s tak1ng a wh1le, and wh1le Krav1tz 1s talk1ng, h1s parts of the conversat1on don’t make sense by themselves, so 1’m go1ng to try to descr1be h1s Den1zen 1n more deta1l. 1t’s sort of b1rdl1ke, w1th dark feathers that sort of sw1rl 1n a very Extra manner. 1ts ta1l feathers tra1l off 1nto what 1 th1nk 1s a column of darkness. 1ts sense of drama 1s adm1rable, 1f somewhat too quas1-goth1c for my personal tastes.

1t sort of patted Krav1tz on the head w1th one w1ng. He looks vaguely mort1f1ed but remarkably okay w1th that.

He’s hav1ng a very ser1ous d1scuss1on, 1 th1nk. Other than the fact that th1s Den1zen 1s act1ng l1ke a part1cularly k1nd lusus, 1t certa1nly seems that way.

Alr1ght, we seem to be done here. Krav1tz tells me he needs some t1me to th1nk about h1s dec1s1on regard1ng the Cho1ce h1s Den1zen offered h1m. He seems unw1ll1ng to elaborate further 1n that regard.

H1s Den1zen 1s apparently called the Raven Queen. That 1s a somewhat f1tt1ng, 1f perhaps unconvent1onal-sound1ng, name for 1t. (/her? Ne1ther of us thought to ask.)

1 th1nk 1’ll ask around to see 1f anyone else 1s ready to v1s1t the1r Den1zen yet. 1’m also go1ng to return to LOSAM, wh1ch fortunately has an eas1er return tr1p than the travel here was, v1a the gates above the planets.

 

St1ll ??:?? ?M; Rema1n1ng players’ entry.

1 have comp1led th1s report almost 1mmed1ately after the event to ensure there w1ll be a record of what happened. The 1nformat1on 1n th1s report 1s mostly from f1rst-hand accounts of the 1nvolved players (Lucas, Jess, and to a lesser degree Davenport), but some deta1ls have been gathered from Ska1a’s cloud 1magery.

We made the s1mple m1stake of assum1ng that most th1ngs that would go wrong had already done so.

 

>[Would be S] Lucas, Jess: Enter. Lucretia: Describe.

 

(This part is set to precisely the right music for this situation… The music for this scene should be a beautiful, disastrous mashup of The Elevator of Tomorrow from the TAZ soundtrack and Elevatorstuck from the Homestuck soundtrack. Seriously, what did you expect?)

 

This scene fades in, and as it does we see the scene in two halves. The top half shows a pertinent selection of text from Lucretia’s journal, whilst the bottom half shows a visual of how it happened.

 

“Jess 1nformed me of how th1ngs went down on her end: she v1s1ted a somewhat nearby forest to tra1n for a b1t, arr1v1ng there us1ng a hoverboard, wh1ch was much faster than walk1ng. Before she could make her way back to her h1ve, the hoverboard was done 1n by a meteor. Several people 1nformed her of the need to get back to her h1ve 1mmed1ately, so she made haste that way as fast as she could.”

 

We see the distance from Jess’s location to her hive again, and we see her making her way through a sort of path through the woods very quickly. We see her shove the door to her hive open with a slam, and her FIRE CRAB LUSUS is right by the door looking very nervous. The room is trashed.

 

“Once she returned to her h1ve, though, she d1scovered that her lusus, on the verge of pan1c about someth1ng 1t was unw1ll1ng to share, was essent1ally f1ght1ng everyth1ng 1n s1ght. She attempted to 1gnore 1t and work anyway, but 1t apparently wasn’t sat1sf1ed or was deeply hyster1cal w1th pan1c, and a STR1FE forc1bly ensued.”

 

We see Jess slide past her lusus into her room, shut the door, and try to get one of the game discs into her computer. A line of fire draws its way up the wall beside her, as well as through the door. She looks a little bit distraught as she gets out her axe. Six letters flash at the top of this half of the screen, and they spell out STRIFE in Alternian text. Jess does some really sick flips and stuff, and keeps trying to get her lusus distracted or calmed. The FIRE CRAB LUSUS is having none of it, but while she’s got its attention away from her computer she manages to get the server disc into the computer’s slots. The lusus is still very panicky and spitting fire all over the place.

 

“1’m certa1n 1t was very stressful for her, but she d1d not tell me of that d1ff1culty and shrugged 1t off 1n her recollect1on. Death 1s a natural part of l1fe, and we are all well aware of the resurrect1ve powers of the kernelspr1te, but hav1ng to put down your lusus yourself must be very d1ff1cult. Th1s 1s the s1tuat1on she found herself 1n.”

 

The FIRE CRAB LUSUS spits more fire at Jess, who dodges under it, flips off of a wall, and brings her axe directly into the middle of the crab. It crumples. She pulls a face and looks upset, and then goes over to her computer.

 

“After that probable b1t of unpleasantness, she set up all the cruc1al equ1pment 1n Lucas’s h1ve as qu1ckly as poss1ble, and then hurr1ed to get herself up to the entry po1nt. Th1s meant that both of them could see the t1me on the1r t1mers at about the same t1me.”

 

We see both Lucas and Jess at their cruxtruders on the bottom half of the screen. Both cruxtruders show the remaining time at “1:11”.

 

“Approx1mately seventy-one seconds.

“Jess prototyped her spr1te w1th her lusus’s rema1ns 1mmed1ately. She states she d1d so because the spr1te needed to be prototyped w1th someth1ng and th1s d1d the tr1ck very well.”

 

We see Jess smash the lid off the cruxtruder and, after some consideration, heft the FIRE CRAB into the kernelsprite, then immediately go and start preparing the necessary items for entry. The FIRECRABSPRITE still looks panicked, but in sprite form it is slightly less hysterical. As Jess places her carved cruxite dowel onto the alchemiter’s little platform, the room shakes violently, but soon settles back to normal.

 

“Her entry was mostly uneventful, s1nce her h1ve was fa1rly far 1nto the ma1nland. Lucas, on the other hand, whose laboratory slash h1ve 1s a sort of 1ceberg-esque structure that was, unt1l earl1er today, float1ng half-submerged 1n the ocean, was 1nconven1ently close to some events that were truly d1sastrous.”

 

We see Jess’s hive vanish in a streak of olive light, and then slide, powerpoint transition style, over to a view of Lucas’s lab. If Jess’s hive was shaking like a leaf for a second there, then Lucas’s is more like a leaf in a hurricane. Lucas, his cruxite dowel currently on the totem lathe and his unprototyped kernelsprite behind him, lands gracelessly on his butt. The water around his hive continues to churn violently.

 

“1f Lucas’s est1mat1on as to what caused those psych1c m1cro-shocks 1s correct, there l1kely 1s not a funct1onal Altern1a to return to. To be fa1r, the meteors would have had a s1m1lar effect on Altern1a 1tself, but these appear to be l1ke a l1kely 1nvoluntary sort of warm-up for, well, the destruct1on of trollk1nd 1n 1ts near ent1rety.

“Wh1le that 1s awful, 1t also 1sn’t the part wh1ch d1rectly affects us.”

 

We see Lucas hurriedly trying to get through the rest of his preparations while his lab is hurtled in all directions and flips end over end. We also see his lusus, MAUREEN the TARDIGRADE, and she looks bad off. Lucas slams the carved cruxite dowel onto the alchemiter, and then looks frantically between his still unprototyped kernelsprite and the timer, which is at seven seconds.

 

“Let’s not po1nt f1ngers where 1t 1sn’t necessary-- 1f that t1mer had run out and he hadn’t put someth1ng 1n h1s kernelspr1te by then, our ent1re sess1on would be just the most outland1sh degree of fucked over you can 1mag1ne.

“But as 1t 1s, 1t’s just us, the players, who are an outland1sh degree of fucked over.”

 

Lucas’s lab spins end-over-end again, and MAUREEN darts towards the kernelsprite. Lucas shouts something, reconsiders for half a second, and shouts something again. The room is filled with white light for just an instant, and when it dies down we see the lab from the outside as a wave of violet light surrounds it and it vanishes into the Medium. 

Barely a fraction of a second after it disappears from its semi-initial location, a wave of psychic something spreads through the water. We don’t get to see what that entails, though, because the scene cuts over to a collection of imps on Robbie’s planet. There’s some with extra legs and big corvid wings, and some with catlike faces and cyborg-esque robot parts, and some with little feathery down and wearing jeans, and a whole variety of other traits. Due to a series of MOLOTOV COCKTAILS, they are getting their butts handily kicked.

 

“Tard1grades are known for the1r res1l1ence to extreme env1ronments and, 1n the case of the var1ant that can become lus11, their res1l1ence to essent1ally everyth1ng. Kernelspr1tes are known for 1mpact1ng a large quant1ty of the monsters 1n the sess1on w1th the ab1l1t1es of whatever 1s prototyped 1nto them.

“1t really 1s not a great comb1nat1on.”

 

Several of the imps Robbie is fighting get… puffier. And marginally more horrible-looking, especially face-wise. These imps shrug off the fire like it’s absolutely nothing.

 

“As 1 stated prev1ously, 1 don’t want to po1nt f1ngers where 1t 1sn’t str1ctly necessary. But our sess1on d1d just get exponent1ally harder, and we’re go1ng to have to l1ve w1th that.”

 

A blue curtain swings closed over the scene.

 

>Davenport: Plan for the future.

 

You make use of one of the message boards to get the group together about this event, because it’s really hard to fight pretty much anything that got tardigraded now.

 

CCA RIGHT NOW opened up a memo on board S7arblas7er.

 

CCA: I’m opening 7his memo so we can discuss wha7 7o do abou7 7he recen7 programming upgrade 7ha7 many of 7he mons7ers in our session have recen7ly received.

CCA: 7his is a s7ric7ly presen7-relevan7 si7ua7ion, so par7y members presen7ly in 7he pas7 are advised 7o worry abou7 7heir own problems.

CURRENT augmentedCotton [CAC] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.

CAC: Uh, yeah, I think a future me on a different memo said that ]ust using strong but normal weapons might &e the most effective way to go a&out it.

CAC: Normal eg. non-fiery, et cetera.

CCA: 7ha7 sounds like a pre77y good idea.

FUTURE championGuillotiner [FCG] 17 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo.

FCG: #e// yea# it does!

FCG: by w#ic# I mean I’ve tried #itting t#em wit# a strong weapon and it works very we//.

FCG: It works we// for basica//y any combat, w#at e/se is new?

FUTURE championGuillotiner [FCG] has left this memo.

CURRENT ascendingTechnologies [CAT] RIGHT NOW responded to memo. CAT: Look, I g>t that I r>ally sort of fucked up h>r>, but ca^ >v>ryon> quit yelli^g at m>? I g>t it. FUTURE corporealCorvid [FCC] 1:11 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo. FCC: Um, n0, y0u fucked up and n0w y0u have t0 deal with it. FUTURE gatheringChronicles [FGC] 4:13 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo. FGC: That 1s a fa1r po1nt, and you’re absolutely go1ng to have to deal w1th everyone chew1ng you out for th1s, Lucas, but to be fa1r he d1d have to put someth1ng 1n the kernelspr1te. FGC: Also to be fa1r, 1t absolutely gets worse than th1s. FGC: But conversely, you d1d a very bad, Lucas, and we haven’t fought the K1ng yet but that’s go1ng to be hard. FGC: 1 second all the th1ngs that people 1n th1s memo came up w1th; also, 1f you have ps1on1c powers, you w1ll f1nd them hella useful. FUTURE gatheringChronicles [FGC] has left this memo. CAT: Dammit. CCA: 7his is, if I migh7 remind all of you guys, a memo for planning how 7o deal wi7h 7his 7ardigrade-based disas7er. CCA: I recogni7e 7ha7 you need 7o ven7 your emo7ions, bu7 do ei7her of you have any sugges7ions? FCC: N0t really. FCC: 0i’m actually starting t0 get fairly g00d at fighting them, but they’re just h0rrible. FUTURE arachnidAdoration [FAA] 7 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo. FAA: thë tǎrdïgrædes mæy bë rësïlïënt, bůt ǎ mǎgïc mïssïle tö thë fæce stïll döës thëm ïn jůst ǎs gööd ǎs ëvër!!! CCA: Excellen7. CCA: Al7hough mos7 of us don’7 have psychic powers. CAC: I can confirm what &rian said is correct, um, &ut you’re right that that won’t work for everyone. FAA: ökæy, thǎt wǎs æll thë ïdëǎs ï hǎve för yöů, sö ï‘m göïng tö gö nöw FUTURE arachnidAdoration [FAA] has left this memo. CCA: Does anyone else have any sugges7ions? CAC: It doesn’t seem like it. FCC: N0pe. FUTURE corporealCorvid [FCC] has left this memo. CAT: Not r>ally, but I’ll look i^to it a^d hop>fully giv> you som> solutio^s soo^. CURRENT ascendingTechnologies [CAT] has left this memo. PAST chipsTonic [PCT] 3:14 HOURS AGO responded to memo. PCT: barryyyy,, do you want to help break me out againn?? CAC: Um CAC: Look, I’m three hours in the future from your current time. CAC: If I’m remem&ering correctly, you’re going to &e in the clear here, &ut go on one of the other memos instead. PCT: ohhhh CCA: Addi7ionally, 7his is supposed 7o be a s7ra7egi7ing memo. PCT: rightt.. PAST chipsTonic [PCT] has left this memo. CCA: 7hese memos never s7ay on 7opic? Bu7 we should a7 leas7 7ry 7o do 7ha7. CCA: On 7ha7 no7e, does anyone else have any ideas, or should I close 7he memo? CAC: We’re the only ones still on this memo, and I don’t have any further ideas, so, uh, I guess go ahead? CCA: Grea7. CCA: 7o review wha7 we’ve go7: CCA: Use s7rong weapons, bu7 ensure 7hey’re non-fire-based and no7 powered by similar 7hings 7ha7 7ardigrades are resilien7 7o, CCA: And if you have psionic abili7ies, 7ardigrades do no7 have resiliences agains7 7hose. CCA: I 7hink 7ha7’s every7hing? CAC: Um, CAC: Yeah. CURRENT ghostlyApplesauce [CGA] RIGHT NOW responded to memo. CGA: guys! CGA: th3r3’s a prob13m on my 3nd! CGA: I sort of m3ss3d up, a 1itt13 bit. CAC: Oh, hey, Noelle! CAC: Is it a&out the tardigrades? CGA: not r3a11y, but this m3mo is in th3 pr3s3nt for m3 and a1so I saw that I’d r3p1i3d to it at som3 point. CAC: Well, that’s fair. CAC: What’s the pro&lem, Noelle? FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] 10:25 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo. FAC: Wait, that reminds me! FAC: Um, sorry for interrupting, but Noelle, FAC: There’s a &it of a time loop that I’m supposed to close a&out now, so um, FAC: This is strictly for Noelle. FAC: Trollian Add-on (For Noelle) CGA: huh? FAC: You don’t have to use it yet, &ut I strongly encourage you to use it as soon as possi&le. FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] has left this memo. CGA: th3r3’s a f3w prob13ms. CCA: Would i7 be possible 7o 7alk abou7 7hem on a differen7 memo? CCA: 7hey’re likely impor7an7 and I’ll make sure 7o help ou7 on 7ha7 memo, bu7 7his one is sor7 of ge77ing off-7rack. CGA: i gu3ss so. CGA: i’11 hand13 this for a f3w minut3s and b3 right back. CGA: i m3an, this is 1ik3… an upgrad3, i suppos3? CGA: i’11 ta1k to y’a11 about it 1at3r. CURRENT ghostlyApplesauce [CGA] has left this memo. CAC: I think that should &e, um, everything that’s going to happen here. CURRENT augmentedCotton [CAC] has left this memo. CCA: 7ha7 sounds abou7 righ7. CURRENT carpeAstrum [CCA] closed this memo. >Noelle: Have a problem on your end.

 

The time is a few seconds in the past. You’re standing on top of the lab, which is floating on one of the seas of cold light and is actually floating now. It extends upwards a bit because of your server player’s building powers, but not too much because she pointed out that it didn’t look stable and before she adds more layers she’s going to try to find a way to ensure it doesn’t fall over. You’re hiding behind a wall again because you’re really not too good at fighting, and you’re watching as a BRONZE CYCLOPS swiftly gains tardigrade-based prototyping powers.

It’s somewhere off in the distance, but it is entirely too close to you for comfort, and, okay, so it’s probably noticed you sort of looking at its weird tardigrade face.

You try to hide better, but with limited success. Yup, it’s on its way… yup. Time to abscond the heck out of here.

 

>Noelle: Abscond abscond abscond!!!

 

You wait until it’s fairly close and definitely headed your way because if you start absconding and it only sees you then, then you’re in trouble. Then you youth roll (well, robot youth roll) through an open entryway and sort of fall back into the lab.

Alright, there shouldn’t be any cyclopes in here, although the lower layers of the lab are somewhat infested with imps. You can avoid the imps for the most part, though.

On the other hand, apparently cyclopes are rather strong and are just going to bust the open entryway wider open. Well, that’s not great.

 

>Noelle: Keep absconding.

 

Why did that entryway have to lead into the part of the lab with the widest hallways?

You robot youth roll around a corner and into a narrower corridor that’s actually-- oh shit, it’s a staircase. You realize that at almost the same instant as you start tumbling down the staircase.

The cyclopes gets stuck on top of the staircase and can’t fit down it. At least the weird bubble-y tardigrade-ness grants its drawbacks to them maybe. Also, at least you’re not getting murdered by a cyclops right now.

But you are falling down some stairs, and that really can’t be good for all your internal circuitry. Were you warned about the stairs? No, you were not warned about the stairs. They’re like the fire exit or something, though, because the rest of the lab runs exclusively on elevators. Most of which were in Lucas’s half of the lab when you entered the Medium.

We see, but you don’t see, a little red blinking arrow pop up at the side of the screen that you’re falling towards, pointing to something offscreen. It blinks on and off a couple times and then vanishes as you tumble off of that side of the screen, directly into the path that that arrow was pointing at.

For just an instant, the screen fills with light.

 

>Noelle: What?

 

You don’t notice it until it happens, but you fall directly into the ROBOTSPRITE, which is prototyped with a pile of robot parts that formed into an actually rather intimidating combination.

You are now… a cooler robot? You’re also a sort of floaty sprite, and probably your own guide.

This also means that you have a whole bunch of game knowledge. Well, that’s weird.

You look on the memo board to try and get a solution, and instead get an add-on for Trollian from Barry.

 

>Noelle: Check out cool spritely knowledge.

 

You know so much about the game now; it’s really sort of tripping you out. You know that there’s around forty-eight hours until something called the reckoning starts, and that once that starts, you will have exactly twenty-four hours to finish the game. You know that the way to beat the game is to make a really big frog, the resources for which are on the Space player’s planet.

From knowledge that isn’t that, though, you’re pretty sure there aren’t any frogs on the Space player’s planet. In fact, your spritely intuition or maybe just your regular intuition is telling you that something is very very very wrong.

However, your spritely information database is not telling you what it is that is wrong, just that something sure isn’t right.

 

>Noelle: Get advice.

 

CGA RIGHT NOW opened a memo on board S7arblas7er.

CGA: my prob13m is that i accid3nta11y prototyp3d mys31f with my sprit3.

CGA: a1so, w3’r3 suppos3d to g3t a frog, but w3 don’t hav3 th3 frog ingr3di3nts so i think w3 might b3 in big troub13 th3r3.

CURRENT carpeAstrum [CCA] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.

CCA: Frog ingredien7s?

FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] 27 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo.

FAC: Um, we’re supposed to get a frog?

CCA: Wha7 was your spri7e, again?

PAST championGuillotiner [PCG] 4 MINUTES AGO responded to memo.

PCG: is t#at a prob/em?

CGA: my sprit3 is a bunch of robot parts.

PCG: a/so, frogs???

CCA: Righ7.

CGA: i m3an, i gu3ss it’s not dang3rous, but it’s w3irding m3 out.

CGA: and y3ah, i’m positiv3 w3 n33d a frog for som3 r3ason.

PCG: weird.

PCG: I’m not t#e best wit#... emotiona/ support or w/e, but /ook on t#e brig#t side, maybe?

CGA: i’11 try.

PCG: great. see ya.

PAST championGuillotiner [PCG] has left this memo.

CGA: i m3an, it is sort of an upgrad3

CGA: oh okay. s33 ya.

CCA: Do you need any7hing?

CCA: 7his is sor7 of an unpreceden7ed si7ua7ion and I am no7 en7irely sure wha7 7o do.

CGA: i think i’11 b3 fin3. i just want to ta1k to y’a11 right now b3caus3 this is w3ird.

FAC: Do you have any idea, uh, why we need a frog?

FAC: Or how we could get one?

CGA: th3 frog is how w3 win th3 gam3, i think.

CGA: and i’m pr3tty sur3 w3 shou1d b3 ab13 to g3t on3 on th3 Spac3 p1ay3r’s p1an3t, but i’v3 1ook3d at TG’s p1an3t and it do3sn’t hav3 any frogs on it?

FAC: ]ust a second, I’ll, uh, troll her real quick and get her over here.

FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] has left this memo.

FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] 28 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo.

FAC: I’m &ack.

FUTURE tongsandGavel [FTG] 28 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo.

FTG: Wha+’s go|ng on |n here?

FTG: Wa|+, |’ve read +hrough |+ and | +h|nk |’ve go+ +he g|s+.

FTG: So my plane+ |s supposed +o have frogs on |+?

CGA: y3ah, i think so.

CGA: you’r3 a spac3 p1ay3r, and th3ir p1an3ts ar3 a1ways suppos3d to hav3 frogs.

CGA: your 1and is LOBAJ, right? and it do3sn’t hav3 frogs.

CGA: i’m not sur3 what that m3ans, though.

FTG: Maybe our sess|on |s jus+ no+ go|ng +o succeed?

FAC: I really, uh, hope that isn’t the case.

CCA: You know wha7? I am going 7o do wha7 I can 7o make sure 7his session succeeds.

CCA: 7here has 7o be some way around 7he missing frogs.

CGA: i don’t know!

CGA: ar3 w3 suppos3d to us3 j311yfish inst3ad of frogs?

CGA: i don’t know if th3r3’s a pr3c3d3nt for that!

FTG: |+’s… | mean, |+ |s wor+h a sho+.

FTG: +he jellyf|sh are all s+uck |n +h|ngs, +hough.

CGA: i don’t know, but i think that cou1d b3 norma1.

CGA: for frogs.

FAC: Yeah, getting the ]ellies instead of frogs should &e, um, a good idea.

CCA: 7hen le7’s 7ry 7ha7.

FAC: What do we need the ]ellyfrogs for anyway?

CGA: i think th3r3’s som3 3quipm3nt you can us3 to g3t th3ir paradox s1im3.

CGA: you win if you g3t that good

CGA: s1im3

CGA: that actua11y sound3d pr3tty gross.

CCA: Alrigh7 everyone, 7hen should we mee7 up on LOBAJ in… 

CCA: 45 minu7es from my perspec7ive?

FTG: +ha+’s f|ne by me.

FUTURE ghostlyApplesauce [FGA] 34 MINUTES FROM NOW responded to memo.

FGA: mayb3 d31ay that

FGA: things just took a turn for th3 scary

FGA: p s past m3, us3 that tro11ian addon asap

CCA: Wha7’s going on? Are you okay?

FAC: Scary?

FGA: m33t up i don’t know in an hour

CGA: what? what’s wrong?

FGA: gotta go!!!! 33p!

FUTURE ghostlyApplesauce [FGA] has left this memo.

CCA: 7ha7 doesn’t sound reassuring.

CGA: y3ah… 

FTG: |+ absolu+ely sounds l|ke you’re go|ng +o wan+ +o prepare for wha+ever |s |n +he nex+ 34 m|nu+es.

FTG: Doesn’+ your spr|+e have a laser r|fle or some+h|ng?

CGA: it’s not r3a11y that cool, and i don’t know how to us3 it anyway.

CGA: but i gu3ss w3’11 m33t up in an hour th3n?

CCA: 7ha7 seems fair.

CCA: 7ha7’s 32 minu7es for 7he 7wo of you 7ha7 are in 7he fu7ure.

FAC: Yeah, I can handle that.

FTG: Seconded.

FAC: Is it okay with every&ody if I tell UU a&out the frogs thing and also the ]ellyfish situation?

FTG: Doesn’+ affec+ me e|+her way.

CGA: i’m fin3 with it.

CURRENT corporealCorvid [CCC] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.

CCC: 0f c0urse y0u’re g0ing t0 immediately g0 talk t0 y0ur weird alien matespirit ab0ut this.

FAC: Did you ]ust reply to this memo exclusively to yell at me a&out my romantic choices?

FAC: Um, not saying we’re necessarily matespirits yet &y the way.

FAC: ]ust wanted to make that clear.

CCC: N0, I als0 wanted t0 yell at y0u ab0ut using y0ur weird psychic p0wers t0 talk t0 dead gh0sts.

CCC: That’s f0cking weird.

FAC: It really isn’t.

CCC: It really is.

FAC: No it’s not.

CCA: Can you 7wo kindly 7ake wha7ever 7ha7 is elsewhere?

CCC: I’m just saying, death exists f0r a reas0n.

CURRENT corporealCorvid [CCC] has left this memo.

CCA: Barry, i7 seems like i7’s fine wi7h everyone, so go ahead.

FAC: Alrighty then. Uh, see you in an hour for the ]ellyfrogs quest?

FUTURE augmentedCotton [FAC] has left this memo.

CGA: y3ah, i gu3ss w3’ll m33t up on Ju1ia’s p1an3t in an hour.

FTG: |’ll see you +hen.

CCA: 7ha7 is 7he plan.

FTG: Wa|+, some+h|ng’s happen|ng.

CGA: what is it?

FTG: |+ looks l|ke a come+.

FTG: |’ll ge+ back +o you guys on |+ once | f|nd ou+ wha+ |+ |s.

FTG: Or | guess |n +he presen+ from my perspec+|ve.

FUTURE tongsandGavel [FTG] has left this memo.

CCA: 7ha7’s sor7 of s7range.

CCA: Anyway, I’ll mee7 up wi7h you in an hour.

CURRENT carpeAstrum [CCA] has left this memo.

CGA: y3ah.

CURRENT ghostlyApplesauce [CGA] closed this memo.

 

>Noelle: Use that Trollian add-on ASAP.

 

You load up the add-on that Future Barry sent you, and it adds two names to your contact list that you haven’t seen before.

But we’re going to get to that later, because this act is getting slightly elongated and behind schedule.

 

>Lucretia: What now?

 

You’ve been in attendance each time someone visited their Denizen thus far, although there really hasn’t been very much of that yet.

But getting counsel from a gigantic, unknowable entity that talks in strangely intelligible nonsense is starting to sound like a good idea right now, even if that counsel takes the form of some decision or even an epic battle. You would prefer not to have a battle, though.

You know where the entrance to your Denizen’s location is from some travel you’ve done across your planet and through some of your gates.

 

>[S] Lucretia: Visit Denizen’s chamber.

 

(This scene is set to a mix of The Cosmoscope from the TAZ soundtrack and Relatively Visible Darkness from the Hiveswap OST. That’s right, Hiveswap music. That just sort of happened.)

 

We see Lucretia walk between two domes, and behind them we see the entrance to some sort of cavern, carved of a blue-green rock that stands out against the silvery domes. There’s some sort of symbol above the entrance to this cavern, but it’s mostly illegible. It looks nondescript.

Lucretia gets out her staff. We see a few imps attempt to rush at her from behind one of the domes, and she steps backwards into the cavern entrance and barricades the door with a wave of force.

We see her walking down the cavernous hallway, tapping her staff on the ground with each step.

We see Davenport working on building up Jess’s house and preparing himself for what might be needed for the jellyfrog mission.

We see Barry levitating a DENIM IMP off a cliff.

We see Kravitz, still thinking about the discussion he had with his Denizen, take off for one of the other planets.

We see Brian practicing his accuracy with magic missiles on a section of webbing that’s blocking off an area.

We see Lucretia again, confronted with some sort of intimidating purple monster, a minion of her Denizen. She takes a deep, steadying breath, points her staff at it, and a big bubble of soft pink force pins it up against the ceiling. She very quickly walks past it.

We see Noelle, the robot, opening a memo with the two new contacts her add-on added to Trollian.

We see Julia looking at a locked cage that holds a jellyfish and trying to poke a stick into the lock to pick it open.

We see Robbie alchemizing a pile of junk food.

We see Lucas quickly captchaloguing some RECORDS OF SCIENTIFIC DATA. Some of the headings, which are displayed on screen, include “FLOATI^G LAB”, “SOULBOT”, and “MULTIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We passed 413 hits!!! As of writing this I think that's how many hits we're at.  
> S/o to everyone who, knowingly or otherwise, validated this content. Guys, I crave that validation, so if you've got more validation hit me up at aquelondungeonmaster.tumblr.com .
> 
> Now that November's over, my writing motivation may have dropped just slightly a lot. But I'm still going to continue to update this, don't worry about it. I am going to make sure it has at least one new chapter per month, probably not counting this chapter. Provided I don't get hit by a colossal wave of writers block, expect a new chapter by Candlenights.


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